Search results for ""The Emma Press""

From interactions with hot oncologists to life-threatening hospital stays to a really bad case of glandular fever. Whether a diagnosis is life-altering or treatable, a total surprise or painfully invisible, The Emma Press Anthology of Illness explores what we wish people knew about being ill, and whether finding that 'new normal' is ever possible.

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At one remove from parental authority, aunts play a crucial role in the upbringing of children across the world. This anthology puts these women in the spotlight and explores what it means to be – and feels like to have – an aunt, historically and today. Some aunts are biological, some are chosen, but all have an impact on the way we learn to move through the world. Poets in this volume tell stories of glamorous confidants, akin to older siblings, and of older women, tough and worldly-wise, who offer their nieces and nephews a different perspective on life. Above all, the book restores their centrality to young people’s development and to family life.

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The Emma Press Book of Beasts rustles and roars with the voices of animals and humans, co-existing on Earth with varying degrees of harmony. A scorpion appears in a shower; a deer jumps in front of a car. A swarm of snowfleas seethes through leaf litter; children bait a gorilla at the zoo. The poems in this anthology examine hierarchy, herds, power, and the price we pay for belonging.

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The Emma Press Anthology of Contemporary Gothic Verse is haunting, romantic, and full of dark doorways and strange spaces which readers will get thoroughly lost in. It's a hand in a velvet glove, ready to grasp you by the elbow and lead you through an array of ravishing and heart-racing encounters. This anthology engages deeply and playfully with the rich and unsettling tradition of gothic literature from which these poems emerge, and updates it for a 21st century readership. The featured poets twist traditional stories, set the rule books on fire, and know that to truly surprise and unnerve, you may have to traverse some wild, remote places...

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In The Emma Press Anthology of the Sea, poets ask how the human mind can fathom the ocean’s depths. The sea emerges as at once strange and familiar, bearing witness to storms, naval history, ocean creatures and the human desire for freedom. As the poets embark on voyages of self-discovery, the sea laps at the boundaries of language, offering both mystery and solace to the reader.

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We’re all ageing, all of the time. As a society we’re getting even older, but we seldom seem to stop and think about the huge mental and physical changes that happen to us as we get old, or what it’s like to live as an old person. The Emma Press Anthology of Age is a collection of poems which challenge, celebrate and give age a voice, finding humour amidst the heartbreak and comfort within the pain.

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A poetry pamphlet by queer, neurodivergent poet Serge ? Neptune. Mother Night is a hallucinogenic journey across a city with too many alleyways and across a life surviving childhood sexual assault.

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A man jumps, the platform empties, then the stories begin. Filled with tales of tragedy, love, hope and frustration, Malachi McIntosh's debut collection of short stories offers surreal and satirical accounts of the many perils of contemporary life. From resistant mothers and unexpected corporate climbers, to doomed weddings and unwelcome visitors, these dark, comedic and uncanny stories contend with timeless concerns of parenthood, family, race and identity in the here and now. Whether characters are absorbed in social media or burying their grief, raising themselves up or taking others down, Parables, Fables, Nightmares brings a light to our interactions in an ailing world and heralds the arrival of a unique new voice in fiction.

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A collection of short stories. In the title story, a child builds a snowman out of ice with her mum's friend Joyce and skirts round the edge of some adult truths. In 'Growing', a daughter visits her mother in the nursing home and tries to bond with her over flower seeds. In 'Double Dose', Patsy makes a Covid-y journey back to her hometown and touches on unpleasant memories of the past.

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This is a picture book for everyone, framed as a bedtime story (and love letter) to the author's son. It follows the events of the little boy's birth, and his mother's struggle with her new role. In stunningly raw writing that cuts straight to the heart, Eihmane tells a story about love and where love comes from.The book is beautifully illustrated by the author, in dark blues and reds, with expressive, blotchy artwork. The book is tactile, printed in risograph and stapled for a welcoming, open feel.EXTRACTI realized my heart was very small. The size of a pea maybe. There was very little love inside, struggling to get out. I said No to the rest. I didn’t like saying No at that time. Maybe it was my first and only No for a long time.Then my heart started to grow with you. I made it grow so you get all the love you deserve. Now I watch my heart, I check with it each morning and each night so it doesn’t stop growing with you.

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A love poem to Emil! Part of the second batch of Bicki-Books, a collectible series of postcard-sized picture books which each feature a classic Latvian poem. Suitable for children aged 3+.

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A fun nonsense rhyme about a child who goes mushroom-picking.Part of the second batch of Bicki-Books, a collectible series of postcard-sized picture books which each feature a classic Latvian poem. Suitable for children aged 3+.

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A sequence of poems set in an imagined city, examining the impact of post-industrialisation and the effect of toxic political leadership on the collapse of cities and communities. The poems offer perspectives from various characters living in the City, from the tour guide to the photographer to the hostess at Kissorama.

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Meet Lela – a clever little girl who is also very stubborn. Despite her mum and dad encouraging her to learn a new language, Lela refuses, arguing that dogs don’t try to neigh. This leaves her in a bit of a pickle at an important international party where she can’t understand anything the grown-ups are saying and feels utterly miserable. Lela vows from this moment on to learn all of the languages of the world, one word at a time… Join Lela on her journey, learning words in Latvian, French, Finnish, German, Spanish, Italian, Estonian, Swedish, Slovenian, Dutch, Maltese and Russian. Filled with humour, adventure and learning, this delightful book will leave you wanting to learn more and more languages.

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Ice Cream is a modern nursery rhyme. It's part of a collectible series of six new classics by Latvian authors, translated into English for the first time. Arnolds Auziņš offers a cautionary tale about the perils of eating too many sweet treats - if you choose to see it that way. It all depends on whether you think turning into a snowman is a good thing or a bad thing! Watercolour pictures by Līva Piterāne create a playful, dream-like snowscape, and add a comic touch to the poem's portrait of family life.

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Travelling from one place to another is never as simple as getting from A to B. Whether you’re sailing in a stately cruise liner or running for a grimy commuter train, your mode of transport affects the way you look at the things around you. Travel can even make us question who we are at home: will we be the same person at the other end of the journey?The poems in this anthology look at the ways in which travelling can change us, whether we enjoy or endure it. They take in not only day-trippers and business travellers, but characters who are forced to voyage against their will, as well as those with no choice but to stay put. Whatever your destination, this book is a companion for the journey, exploring the nuances of the strange state of being in transit.

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On the cusp of womanhood, Daina Tabūna's heroines are constantly confronted with the unexpected. Adult life seems just around the corner, but so are the kinds of surprise encounter which might change everything. Two siblings realise they're too old to be playing with paper dolls. A girl develops a fixation with Jesus. And a disaffected young woman stumbles into an awkward relationship with an office worker. The narrators of these three stories each try, in their own way, to make sense of how to behave in a world that doesn't give any clear answers.

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The stories in First fox offer an everyday world tinged with the dreamlike qualities of fairy tales. Radojkovich explores the complex dynamics of families with a blend of dry wit and startling imagery. Disappointments and consolations meet with fantastical moments, winding their way into the realm of possibility.

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Who was the world’s first female programmer? Who made history as the first British woman to sail solo around the world non-stop? Who is Birmingham’s first female Muslim MP? Meet Mary Lee Berners-Lee, Lisa Clayton, Shabana Mahmood and many more in Once Upon a Time in Birmingham, a lively introduction to thirty of Birmingham’s most awe-inspiring women, past and present. From pioneers in their field to everyday heroines, these are women who refused to be silenced, who fought for what they believed in, who proved they were just as good as men… if not better!Compete in two days of challenging heptathlon events with Olympic gold medallist Denise Lewis. March the picket lines with staunch activist and seeker of justice Jessie Eden. Raise your voice and speak up for girls around the world with courageous campaigner and Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai.Accessible, educational and downright inspirational, this empowering collection of creators and innovators, activists and changemakers, is a must-read for all ages. Complete with vibrant illustrations from a host of up-and-coming female illustrators, learn about the women who made, and are making, Birmingham the great city it is today.

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What does it mean to die in a movie scene? To exist on the peripheries? James Trevelyan takes twelve cult action films of the 1980s and 90s and gives life where it was extinguished too early. Speaking in the voices of such poignantly disposable characters as Cougar (Top Gun), GIRL (Lethal Weapon) and Donald Gennaro (Jurassic Park), Trevelyan provides a humorous and heart-breaking exploration of morality, mortality and our sense of self. With 9 black line drawings by Emma Wright.

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Aren’t mildly erotic things the most erotic of all? Sometimes eroticism isn’t just about sex – it can be about anticipation, desire, intimacy and romance. It can be wild, hilarious, beautiful and alarming, and it may be hard to define but you’ll know it when you see it. Mildly Erotic Verse skips the mechanics and dives straight into the emotional core of sex, celebrating the diversity and eccentricity of human sexuality.

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A true adventure story set in the vividly-evoked Old West and told through verse and prose poems. We follow the progress of the bounty hunter Harry Love, on his triumphant tour of California with the supposed head of horse-thief Joaquin Murrieta in a jar, and the Five Joaquins, a notorious gang of outlaws hard on Love's tracks.John Clegg was born in 1986 and works in a bookshop in London. His first collection, Antler, was published by Salt in 2012. His poems have been featured in The Salt Book of Younger Poets, Best British Poetry 2012 and Best British Poetry 2013. In 2013 he received an Eric Gregory award.

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A beguiling collection of observational poems and literary parodies which explore and celebrate snail culture, as told by a prematurely-crushed snail poet. Jamie McGarry of Scarborough and Valley Press writes with infectious verve and his poems are frequently romantic and always very funny. Several poems examine snailkind's unhealthy adoration of slugs – the rebels without shells of the kitchen garden – and highlights include a thrilling travel account ('A Snail of Two Cities') and a poignant account of moving house ('A Shell of My Former Self'). This book features a number of joyous homages to human poets including Robert Frost, John Betjeman, T.S. Eliot and Gervase Phinn, and was previously published by Valley Press.Jamie McGarry founded small publishing operation Valley Press in 2008, which he continues to run to this day. Uncovering and translating the original 'snail diary' in 2009, Jamie made it his mission in life to honour the author's memory, and spread the word of his literary prowess far and wide.

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20-something and uncertain about her future, Florentyna Leow is exhilarated when an old acquaintance offers her an opportunity for work and cohabitation in a little house in the hills of Kyoto. Florentyna begins a new job as a tour guide, taking tourists on elaborate and expensive trips around Kyoto's cultural hotspots. Amidst the busy tourist traps and overrun temples, Florentyna develops her own personal map of the city: a favourite smoky jazz kissa; a top-shelf katsuobushi loving cat; an elderly lady named Yamaguchi-san, who shares her sweets and gives Florentyna a Japanese name. Meanwhile, her relationship with her new companion develops an intensity as they live and work together. Their little kitchen, the epicenter of their shared life, overlooks a community garden dominated by a fruitful persimmon tree. Their relationship burns bright, but seasons change, the persimmon tree out back loses its fruit, and things grow strange between the two women.

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A child is born and everything is made anew. In this blur of new beginnings there are tears and laughter, new words and new silences: this is an unmaking and remaking of the self. From short stories about unnerved fathers and lost mothers, to poems about 'half-built Lego palaces' and friends who share their deepest secrets, Blood & Cord is a raw exploration of new parenthood. Voicing silenced conversations about loss, grief, and loneliness, as well as the joys and laughter that are part and parcel of becoming a parent, the stories told within offer a refreshingly honest account of life after new life. This collection is a hand in the dark, offering comfort and solidarity to any new parent. Edited by Abi Curtis, with prose pieces from Naomi Booth, Jennifer Cooke, Rebecca Goss, Daisy Hildyard, Caleb Klaces and Malcolm Taylor, and poems from Liz Berry, Rachel Bower, Tommy Brad, Janine Bradbury, Ruth Charnock, Abi Curtis, Paige Davis, Gail McConnell, Elizabeth Hogarth, Alex McRae Dimsdale, Sandra Simonds and Sylvie Simonds.

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Acerbic, precise and very funny, Pamela Crowe’s poems explore home life and relationships in a delightfully forthright voice. Secret frustrations and anxieties are aired and private fantasies brought into the light, as odes blur into diatribes and psychodramas become love poems. Woven throughout The Bell Tower is a love of Jane Austen, Sylvia Plath, Wendy Cope and – above all – Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones. These are fierce, acutely observed poems that give weight to domestic minutiae and put words to helpless howls into the abyss.You, the cloud. Oh look! there you are, blobbing along as if you’re best friends with rain and thunder is your dad. Fuck off.- excerpt from 'Cloudcunt'

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Simone Atangana Bekono's poems are vivid and arresting, with the feeling of letters or diary entries. In nine breath-taking streams of consciousness, the poet explore race, gender and sexuality, addressing the social stigmatization of race and gender and invoking empathy and human connection in a voice that is both confident and innovative.

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Europe, Love Me Back is a collection of relentlessly questing, sharply satirical poems about the continent, and the poet’s fraught relationship with it. Hurting yet clear-eyed, Rizwan explores and exposes what it means to be a small brown woman in Dutch suburbs, hospitals and academia. This is an angry love letter, to a place left behind yet always there, continuing to matter and hurt and shape the poet’s identity.

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The Door Wizard is a modern nursery rhyme. It's part of a collectible series of six new classics by Latvian authors, translated into English for the first time. This tale by Pēters Brūveris is about the radical changes that happen when a wizard makes it impossible for a door to close. The outside comes in and the inside goes out. But what's a kid to do, caught in the middle of it all? The story is brought to life with colourful geometric illustrations of home life and the natural world by Paulis Liepa.

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Bicki Bucki is a modern nursery rhyme. It's the first in a collectible series of six new classics by Latvian authors, translated into English for the first time. Janis Baltvilks and illustrator Reinis Petersons work together to tell the unusual story of a friendship between a small boy and a dinosaur which gets its tail stuck under a stone. Petersons's simple, block colour illustrations make this tale of perseverance and helping others pop off the page. And just like the hero, the reader who powers on to the end will find a real surprise at the end of their quest!

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Which King had a mischievous pet monkey? Which ruthless Queen enjoyed toasting people to a crisp? Whose reign lasted only nine days? The Head That Wears A Crown is a captivating collection that features the Kings and Queens of the British Isles as you’ve never seen them before.Read Queen Victoria’s Twitter posts and young Elizabeth I’s letters to her father’s latest wife. Hear the muddy marching song of King Harold’s soldiers and learn which royal was Danish as a pastry, but nothing like as sweet! Intriguing, comical and accompanied by fascinating historical facts, these vibrant poems are a joy to read, bringing a long line of daring and devious monarchs to life.

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In 1940, a young girl is taken from her home in Eastern Poland to Arkhangelsk, Siberia; in 1942, she boards a train. Seventy years later, that journey is reimagined by her granddaughter, Zosia Kuczyńska. As Kuczyńska’s poems tell the story of her babcia, her maternal grandmother, coming to England, she confronts some of the big questions of art and history: how do you tell another person’s story without exploiting it? What’s at stake when we try make patterns out of the past, and can we ever leave those patterns behind? Kuczyńska’s poems are both richly narrative and sharply attentive to the complexities of home and culture. They capture human endurance through the redrawing of political maps, from ‘the heat of Easter in Tehran’ to the powdered eggs and stocking shortages of the London Blitz.

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Kira always feels gloomy when it rains. She can't read outside, can't play in the park, and has to wear all her thickest clothes. But one day her friends Ana and Ilo ask her to join them on an adventure outside during another downpour. Kira discovers the joy of all the things that happen outside when it rains – from the new friends she makes, to the umbrellas on the streets, to the thrill of lightning, and finally, the warmth found at the end of each rainfall. With her delightful artwork and enchanting words, Rassi Narika spins a story of hope and discovery that will brighten even the rainiest of days.

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The Dog Who Found Sorrow is a beautiful, resonant picture book about sadness and healing, suitable for all ages.It tells the story of a dog who, waking to find his hometown covered in thick black clouds, goes out in search of the source of sorrow. It's an intrepid quest, a parable about hope, and a tonic for our sorrowful times. The gentle fantasy storytelling is accompanied by textured, detailed artwork.

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How does it feel to be a foreigner? Can you choose where you call home? What if you reject your home or your home rejects you? Homesickness and Exile is a fascinating collection of poems about the fundamental human need to belong to a place, as poets from across the world provide profound and moving insights into the emotional pull of countries and cities. Poems about homecoming, departure and both voluntary and involuntary exile provoke reflections on alienation and identity, and a recurring theme is the yearning for a sense of belonging and acceptance by a place. This anthology is inspired by the Tristia, a collection of poems written by the Roman poet Ovid after he was banished from Rome by the Emperor for an unknown misdemeanour. Homesickness and Exile expands on Ovid's themes and considers spiritual as well as physical exile in the modern world, with poets writing about rootlessness and geographical ennui.

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A fascinating pamphlet of love poems all themed around the poet's single object of desire. In this beautifully illustrated collection, Richard O'Brien deploys every trick in the love poet's book, resulting in a irresistible mix of tender odes, introspective sonnets, exuberant free verse and anthems of sexual persuasion. The poems plunge from ecstasy into melancholy from couplet to couplet, and the book as a whole stands as a defiant sally against the pressures of long-distance relationships. Loosely inspired by the Roman poet Ovid's Amores.Lincolnshire poet Richard O'Brien studied English and French at Oxford University and hosted an English-language radio show on EU Radio Nantes after graduating in 2012. He is now studying Shakespeare and Creativity at the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon.His first pamphlet, your own devices, was published by tall-lighthouse press in 2011, as part of the Pilot series for British and Irish poets under 30. His work has since featured in Poetry London, the Erotic Review, The Salt Book of Younger Poets and The Best British Poetry 2013. His blog, The Scallop-Shell, is dedicated to the close reading of contemporary poetry and he recently performed his poems at the BBC Proms Lates. His second full pamphlet, A Bloody Mess, will be published by Ink Lines (an imprint of Valley Press) towards the end of 2013.

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Makeover is a book dripping with nostalgia, cigarette ash and sour cream dip. Lit by too-close TV screens and too-bright calorie counters, Bolger's poems explore growing up, differing bodies and societal expectations. Writing in praise of mums, nans and sisterhood, this is a work bursting with strength, anger, love and, ultimately, hope. In a celebration of girls shaped by swimming baths and Working Men's Clubs, friendship and family, Makeover contends with what we inherit and what we ought to pass on.

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Can you feel homesick and at home at the same time? Ever felt lost for words but full of things to say? Meet Andrea Davidson. In Eggenwise, Andrea explores moving to a different country, learning a new language, growing up and falling in love through poems that notice the remarkable in the everyday: a salted sprig of parsley, thundering raindrops on windowpanes, and the buzzzZZZzzz of a pesky pet fly. Through warm and conversational verse, Eggenwise invites you to step into the author's new home in Belgium, to roll your tongue around new words, savour their sound and share your own story through poetry... Fully illustrated throughout by Amy Louise Evans.

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A debut pamphlet of poems from Z.R. Ghani rich with desire, shame, grief, faith, love, and at the forefront of it all: the colour red.

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Astute, precise, and unsettlingly calm, Accessioning is an index of lives encased in museum glass, and then brought to life. Through poems about ‘fossilised fruit seeds’ and the sofa where Emily Bronte died, Wetton questions how we curate the lives of those living and dead, in a pamphlet about looking, processing, and memorialising. Whether considering preserved wedding-cakes, a non-existent art exhibition or a human scream, these poems speak to the impossibility of containment and question our ability to map and categorise. This is a pamphlet of poems about the stories that we tell ourselves, the memories that we construct, and the ways that we value and devalue people, animals and objects alike.

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The Strange Egg is a luminous gothic prose poem that delves into the mythopoeic to express injustice at the hands of abusive medical systems. A woman is faced, month after month, with the birth of a strange egg. Her doctor asks that she take notes on her symptoms, documenting black blood clots as big as pennies, winking stars in her eyes, and relentless pain. As the woman waits for aid from her doctor, she begins to have strange premonitions of what will be done to her body. The egg, meanwhile, is watchful and demanding. Impatient. Kirstie Millar’s The Strange Egg is as gorgeous as it is horrifying. Highly original, it challenges long-held beliefs that people of marginalised genders are unreliable and irrational witnesses to our own bodies.

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In her debut pamphlet, Lisabelle Tay leads the reader down through the underworlds of illness, motherhood and family histories. Lighting the way with her poems, the poet draws on Celtic, Classical and Chinese mythologies, appealing to the selkie, Eurydice, and Chang'e in turn as she seeks a path through the darkness – and back to the light. Pilgrim depicts a journey and a return, moving from the expansive and mythological to the inward and personal. The pilgrim who left is not the pilgrim who returns.

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A fun nursery rhyme about potatoes written across a long strip of potato peel. Part of the second batch of Bicki-Books, a collectible series of postcard-sized picture books which each feature a classic Latvian poem. Suitable for children aged 3+.

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Call and Response is a sequence of sonnets from the perspective of a daughter, addressed to her mother during her mother's illness. Hard-edged yet tender, the poems explore the darker side of familial bonds and the strange ways suffering can heal old wounds.

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The Goldfish is a sumptuous, surreal exploration of femininity. The poet inhabits the voice of a goldfish through a series of linguistically experimental poems which plunge us into the glass bowl and invite us to gaze out. The poems are in turn sensual, spiky, and queasy, as the poet satirizes the patriarchy and issues a rallying cry for women broken down by society. Halfway through the book, the scope opens out to the world beyond the goldfish bowl, via the story of a free spirit passing through customs, a paean "to our white husbands", and a letter which heals old wounds.

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Animated by many different types of kinship, the poems in Dear Friend(s) explore webs of experience that wind between parents, extended families and friends. They will take readers back to powerful, often early influences, which result from relations of likeness and empathy as well as blood.The long title poem is an elegy – to a specific Dear Friend, dead from AIDS in its earliest years. It’s also an elegy for the loss of innocence and freedom of sexual expression that flowed generously in the 1970s and 80s, in the UK and in the US.

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School can be hard, fun and strange – sometimes all at once. It’s full of your best friends and all the teachers as well as lots of kids you haven't met. Every day reveals more stories and challenges…Everyone's the Smartest is a collection of poems which tell strange new stories in familiar settings. From clever ducks who fly far away while children are stuck in school, to bathroom taps that are just one mistake away from turning the school into a great lake, this collection reminds its readers that there is wonder everywhere.Packed with extra features, including interviews with the author and illustrator, notes from the translators, fun facts about Estonia, and ideas to help you write your own poems.

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The voices of humans and animals, living and dead, clamour for the reader’s attention in Meat Songs. Headlice roam their strange habitat, a severed pig’s head questions an undergraduate’s choices, and packaged meat products are ignoring the future.

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