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Tell Me About the Broken BonesJen Dunn's first collection of poems is a stark and, in places, raw read. Terse yet vivid lines examine a range of experiences in the life of a medical professional. The colours and sounds of an orthopaedic surgeon's daily interventions are contrasted with the mournful internal dialogue of psychoanalysis. This collection marks the emergence of a new voice with rich experience of trauma in its variant forms, and an impressive range of poetic instruments with which to investigate those experiences.
(Andy Jackson, poet)
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For All the Ghosts That Live In Me
Mark Vernon Thomas is a powerhouse of a poet. The evidence is apparent throughout this impressive collection, one which will certainly further enhance his reputation. What impresses is the wide range and variety of his work, imbued with a keen intelligence, bravura energy and playful inventiveness. Entertaining, thought
provoking, at times poignant and moving, the writing seamlessly veers from deployed humour and satire worthy of a stand-up comedian to poems of finely tuned lyricism.
This is a book that will make you sit up and pay attention.
(David Mark Williams, poet)
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She’s Some Woman: Testaments
The Wanderlust WomenLearn about strong women trailblazing through history in this fiery collection written by a coven of amazing women. Ride the poetic coattails of Donna Campbell, Lesley Benzie and Linda Jackson as they surf and weave stories bringing a fleet of women into the light they deserved all along.
‘She's Some Woman’ is some collection, and then some, with bells on, roaring at the moon.
Jo Gilbert, Poet.
Limited First Edition available, July 19th
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Scrap Mettle
‘Great writers are great no matter the genre or form, they carry their preoccupations, their wisdom, wherever they go - and Willy Maley is one of our very finest. In Scrap Mettle, he brings all the endlessly curious, interrogative spirit that pervades his dramatic and critical writing to poetic form. At times playful, at times deadly serious, he draws on inspiration through the generations, both literary and familial, to cast a cool eye over our here-and-now world. These are poems of communities, delivered with warmth, humour, and trademark wit.'
Dr. Rodge Glass
Book Available Mid- August
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There is Always an Edge
Val Waldron’s poems are intimate and carefully placed not just from but at the edge of the places and times she takes us to. Whether the poems are vast or pinpoint in scope, you are right there where she is, looking through her eyes. She ties together ecology, social justice and childhood memories into a broad, coherent view of how the world is.
(Charlie Gracie)
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Love, Mothers and Matriarchs
Donna Bryson
(Carol McKay, writer. £7)
The beauty of a pamphlet is that you can read it all the way through in one sitting, while you’re on a bus, or curled up on the couch at home, with a coffee. The beauty of this pamphlet goes way beyond all that.
Love, Mothers and Matriarchs is a themed pamphlet. The title is perfect. The poems in this sequence have the reader experience and reflect on all the heady joys love, womanhood and motherhood bring. There’s ‘Fecundity’ with its first lines ‘Any news? / Any news?’ leading on to ‘Breathless’, which opens with ‘You snuffle at my neck / fingers curling and unfurling’. Ah, the nuance of new motherhood! But that’s not all. This is a three-dimensional examination and celebration of love, motherhood and matriarchy. By extension, of partners and children, too. Donna Bryson describes in often tense and visceral lines the irritations, outrage and fears of relationships, both romantic and familial. So, ‘Drama Queen’ begins ‘He said he had helped me with the ironing. / Me and not us.’ And then there’s the anxiety expressed in ‘Waiting’ – ‘What was he wearing? What did he say? / when he left the house.’
Much of the imagery is connected with water and the sea. Coming to terms with ageing, Bryson describes in ‘Mirror, Mirror’ oestrogen as a ‘trickle compared with / the river / of former years / replaced with floods of fury’. The story arc of this themed pamphlet draws towards its final meditations with the beautifully crafted ‘Anchored in You’ and ‘Hidden’ – both moving tributes to, and recognition of, the sincerity and depth of mother love.
Whether curled up on the couch or on a bus, Love, Mothers and Matriarchs will appeal to everyone.
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Native River
In this collection, Macfarlane ‘swims through galaxies’. These clear-eyed poems honour the sacredness of everyday; showing us how the smallest moment or observation (a salmon leap, a sparrow, newborn mouse, a boy in red trainers) might be framed for greatness. With intricacy of form and voice, these poems are deft negotiations between nature and human-made; between species; between past and present; Scots and English (and – with heart-rending effect – both, in ‘Going back’); the body and the elements. Macfarlane offers us meeting points of river, grassland, city, garden, hill and field – where connection and recovery are possible, alongside acknowledgements of difficulty and loss.
(Rebecca Sharp, writer)
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The Department of Stuff & Things
My life is enriched by experiencing the world through Jo Gilbert’s utterly unique, gritty perspective and voice. In Doric Scots and English, she sets the ‘Stuff and Things’ of life e.g. clothes, crockery, shopping, nature, our militant pursuit of ‘so-called’ novelty life-enhancing experiences, at a jaunty angle. In poems such as Lingerie, which begins ‘Surely sadists inventit the thong?’ and You were right about Mars ‘we arrived on the Moon, fucked it up, moved to Mars, then FUBARed her, history repeating’ she cleverly weaves tear-streaming laughter with sugar-punches of pathos that begs us question the world we have made and the existential threats we’re now facing. A compelling and byordinar collection!
(Lesley Benzie, poet)
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