Description
Book SynopsisJen Campbell’s first collection The Girl Aquarium explores the realm of rotten fairy tales, the possession of body and the definition of beauty. Weaving between whispered science and circus, she turns a cracked mirror on society and asks who gets to control the twisted tales hiding in the wings. Semifinalist for the Goodreads Choice Awards 2019 (Best Poetry category) Shortlisted for the poetry category of the Books Are My Bag Readers Awards 2019
Trade ReviewPoetry of innocence and wonder. Poetry of darkness and deformation. The poems about girlhood experiences are daringly original. -- Daljit Nagra
These poems push and pull you, making strange bedfellows of butchery, freaks, and the inner lives of girls. Her roller-coaster of vivid images threaten to tear the paper. -- Melissa Lee-Houghton
I am impressed by the boldness, close to wildness, of Jen Campbell’s imagination. As well as being fascinated, I take her very seriously. -- Christopher Reid
This blistering poetry collection explores showmanship, the so-called freak industry, fairytales and spectacle – and, in fact, it doesn’t so much unpick these things as smash them to pieces and make them new… I love so much about it: how it kicks against tropes of disfigurement, how science jostles against fantastical circus, how it explores the way in which girls’ bodies can be sites of both self-discovery and exploitation. It is defiant, bold, brilliant. As the penultimate poem states, “Smash this circus to the ground. -- Elizabeth Macneal * The Guardian (Top ten books about circuses and spectacle – No 2: The Girl Aquarium) *
Table of ContentsI 10 Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge 11 #1 12 Girl Lunar 13 The Exorcism of the North Sea 14 Memories of Your Sister in a Full Body Wetsuit 16 Appendix 17 Movement 18 The Girl Aquarium 20 Half-full 21 Etymology 22 What he did can be found in Genesis 23 Luminiferous Aether 24 I wish to tell you body parts 27 The Magician’s Daughter 28 The Chicken, the Egg and My Sister 29 The Patron Saints of Animals II 32 Hero 33 Miss Eliza’s Skeleton Factory 34 The Doll Hospital 36 The Bear 37 The Angel of the North 38 Swimmin 39 Birdlasses 40 Netted 42 Merlasses 43 Small Infinities 45 A Song of Herself 46 Angel Metal 47 On Crucifixion 48 The Art of Saving Other People 49 Orange Brain. Flowered Brain. III 52 Hello, Dark 54 Butterfly Dresses at the Westminster Aquarium (1880) 55 What the Bearded Lady Told Me 56 I Heard She Had a Strawberry Heart 57 The Glow-worm Chasers 58 Kitchen 59 How to Weigh Nothing 60 In Fields She Wasn’t Scarin Crows 61 On Display at the Hunterian Museum 62 The Woman’s Private Looking-glass 64 The Day We Ran Away from the Circus 71 Biographical note
