Here are the final poems from the online launch for The Arctic Diaries by Melissa Davies from back in April. Explore Fleinvær, off the north coast of Norway in poems.
The Arctic Diaries
Melissa is taking part in Edinburgh BookFringe, reading and talking about The Arctic Diaries, at Typewronger bookshop on Monday 28th August at 6pm get your tickets!
They Call Him the Salmon King of Norway
Seaweed
Treasures from the first boat
Bird Wife
Lookout Men
Værøy
Bird wife
Here’s the second half of the Q&A from the online launch for The Arctic Diaries by Melissa Davies from back in April. Explore Fleinvær off the north coast of Norway in poems. Melissa, a Cumbrian native, talks about the impact that Fleinvær has had on her writing and her life, complete with map and live feed to the island! The poems read at the launch will follow…
The Arctic Diaries
Melissa is taking part in Edinburgh BookFringe, reading and talking about The Arctic Diaries, at Typewronger bookshop on Monday 28th August at 6pm get your tickets!
Here are the first poems from the online launch for The Arctic Diaries by Melissa Davies from back in April. Explore Fleinvær, off the north coast of Norway in poems.
The Arctic Diaries
Melissa is taking part in Edinburgh BookFringe, reading and talking about The Arctic Diaries, at Typewronger bookshop on Monday 28th August at 6pm get your tickets!
Collectors
Coffee
The Fisherman remembers a Boy Disappeared
Halibut
Guardians
Fleinvaer is Made up of 365 Islands
Vanishing Act
Another slow start on my part – here’s the first half of the Q&A from the online launch for The Arctic Diaries by Melissa Davies from back in April. Explore Fleinvaer of the north coast of Norway in poems. Melissa, a Cumbrian native, talks about the place, people and stories that inspired the book. The rest will follow, when it’s been captioned!
The Arctic Diaries
Melissa is taking part in Edinburgh BookFringe, reading and talking about The Arctic Diaries, at Typewronger bookshop on Monday 28th August at 6pm get your tickets!
Have you got a copy of Unmothered? Some of the poems in the collection consider the body, and particularly a woman’s relationship to her physicality. Poet A.J Akoto spoke to us about why she wanted to explore the shrinking that women so often go through:
Delicacy
You do not have to be a delicacy.
You do not have to be tasty.
You do not have to submit
your body into feminine frailty.
You do not have to ruin your digestion
in an attempt to be digestible.
Your mind can be full
of ice-white rage;
you do not have to be kind.
You do not have to yield
to the pressure to forgive.
Forgiveness does not make you good
and goodness does not require it.
You do not have to exhibit grace,
not in anything.
You do not have to make yourself
a morsel,
not for anyone.
Buy Unmothered direct from Arachne Press
or come to the next event: Thursday 20th July 7.30 at Afrori Books in Brighton. Tickets via Afrori
Unmothered by A.J Akoto publishes this Thursday 13 July! Ahead of release, Cherry Potts spoke to A.J about the editing process. Watch the video below for a behind-the-scenes look at what it took to complete this intimate, unflinching and powerful work.
Join us at Housmans Bookshop tonight for an in-person celebration of Unmothered, or register for the online launch on Thursday: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/636463558637
To celebrate forthcoming publication of Unmothered by A.J Akoto, we caught up with A.J to talk about every aspect of her debut collection, from the inspiration behind it, to her use of myth, and the complexities and challenges of writing about your own life.
“I don’t think it’s speaking to anything that’s destructive to the self, or to the reader, to consider the things that are in these poems”.
In this video, A.J speaks about the process of creating Unmothered, and the impact of its cover and content, with editor and Arachne Director, Cherry Potts.In this video, A.J speaks about the process of creating Unmothered, and the impact of its cover and content, with editor and Arachne Director, Cherry Potts.
See the full cover for Unmothered below, and find out more about artist Kevin Threlfall on Instagram.
Pre-order your copy of Unmothered now or book to join us at an event:
To celebrate forthcoming publication of Unmothered by A.J Akoto, we caught up with A.J to talk about every aspect of her debut collection, from the inspiration behind it, to her use of myth, and the complexities and challenges of writing about your own life.
Here A.J tells us more about the mythological inspiration behind Unmothered, including the fierce women from myth who appear in the collection as icons of unapologetic female agency and justified anger.
Gorgon
Certain things should be approached
side-on, with a darting gaze,
as you look at a bright goddess
from the corner of your eye.
My mother is a figure ablaze
at the edge of sight; I cannot bear her
head on. I need a sickled blade.
I need a shield, mirror-bright.
Pre-order your copy of Unmothered now or book to join us at an event:
To celebrate forthcoming publication of Unmothered by A.J Akoto, we caught up with A.J to talk about every aspect of her debut collection, from the inspiration behind it, to her use of myth, and the complexities and challenges of writing about your own life.
We’ll be releasing chunks of this conversation every Monday lunchtime for the next few weeks. First up, A.J speaks to Cherry Potts about the initial inspiration for Unmothered, and how it was born from a need to speak into the silence that surrounds difficult mother-daughter relationships.
Publishing on 13th July, Unmothered is an intimate and unflinching collection that tracks the complex bind of mother-daughter relationships. Through separations and attempts to mend, longing and the fluidity of myth/story-telling in defining histories and identities, she collapses the elision between womanhood and mother/daughterhood.
“Every word in this stunning debut collection deserves its place on the page. Akoto skilfully stitches fragments of love, along with forgiveness, compassion, and insight, into the fabric of her life.” Louisa Adoja Parker
Pre-order your copy of Unmothered now or book to join us at an event:
Wednesday 22nd February 6.30pm, we are launching our first book of 2023, Saved to Cloud, by Kate Foley, at Keats House.
The algorithm
of my own life, faded
and spidery,
is written,
not keyed in.
Kate takes a slightly jaundiced but clear-eyed look at the state of the planet, and our over-reliance on technology as a lens to review her relationship with religion and memory.
And for International Women’s Day on Wednesday 8th March at 4.30pm, we have a prepublication event for More Patina than Gleam by Jane Aldous at St Colomba’s-by-the-Castle Church Hall in Edinburgh.
In her 70th year, Jane decided to write a novella in seventy poems, exploring a fictionalised version of a life she almost lived.
This series of poems, based in post war Edinburgh, tell linked love stories, including the story of Linda, fleeing with her eleven-year-old daughter from England and an abusive relationship. In hiding as a lady’s companion in one of the city’s suburbs, mother and daughter settle into their new life in Elsie’s rackety house, and encounter a variety of characters who will change their lives forever.
Both books are part of our continued program of publishing older women, and in this case, lesbians.
