writer, reader, recovering academic
In the Sick Hour by Kaiya Waerea & Jane Hartshorn (Takeaway Press, 2020), and Fovea / Ages Ago, by Sarah Lasoye (Hajar Press, 2021): reading these texts together was the most absorbing and enlightening process. Both texts are exquisitely intelligent interrogations of the experience of illness, childhood, the body in flux, basically being alive. Reviewed for SPAMzine.
the last few months of this difficult, difficult year were enormously enriched by the launch(es) of the weird folds: everyday poems from the anthropocene, which i have been co-editing with maria sledmere. the experience has been wonderful, sanity-saving, and has significantly expanded my thinking through poetry. i couldn’t have expected all this in this year and am warmly gratified by it.
we have contributions from: Pratyusha, Kashif Sharma-Patel, Jay G Ying, Sarah Cave, Samantha Walton, Rebecca Tamás, Daisy Lafarge, Jane Hartshorn, Francesca Lisette, Max Parnell, Calum Rodger, Miranda Cichy, Alice Tarbuck, fred spoliar, Iain Morrison, Gloria Dawson, Vahni Capildeo, Sascha Akhtar, Fred Carter, Katy Lewis Hood and Therese Keogh, montenegro fisher, Nat Raha, Mike Saunders, Jane Goldman, Harriet Tarlo, Rosie Roberts, Lila Matsumoto, Colin Herd, Paul Hawkins, nicky melville, Kat Sinclair, Nasim Luczaj.
An extraordinary group of people, as you’ll see if you read the collection (and thank you if you do). As I wrote in an instagram caption, ‘we wanted to feel our moment in climate history, through our bodies, in our everyday rhythms.. the “new nature” poems we brought together here help us do that. A year in the making, through solstices and equinox, through lockdown and through the ether, Maria (<3) and I have been nourished by the wonderful work of these wonderful poets. Thank you contributors, and Rich and Vicky at Dostoyevsky Wannabe‘ (who are fantastic).
You can find it at bookshop.org now.
Rhian Williams 