Our featured publication for March and April 2024 is (m)othersongs by Sarah Doyle, published by V. Press.
‘(m)othersongs is a moving, visceral exploration of the othering nature of un-motherhood.
Body shame, medical misogyny and grief are exorcised in shape-shifting forms with veins of
pain running through them, in which everything from cloud formations to sea gooseberries on
a shoreline speak of the changing seasons of the human body. This is a world where ‘wooden
babies’ and rag dolls are born in place of children, and the womb – a ‘special bedroom’
haunted by endometriosis, fibroids and myths of creation – is surrendered with the mantra –
‘it’s only a pocket, and one you’re not using’. Both heartbreaking and strangely transporting,
these are powerful and necessary poems.‘ Polly Atkin
‘(m)othersongs is one of those rare examples of a collection of poetry that is both moving in
content and accomplished in form. Each poem is expertly crafted, with a skilled use of
structured form alongside beautifully crafted free verse. This textured and vibrant collection
does not hold back, it faces the pain of endometriosis and infertility and holds that pain up to
the light as valid experience of womanhood. The poetry world is enriched by this collection,
and I shall return to it.‘ Wendy Pratt
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Sarah Doyle is the Pre-Raphaelite Society’s Poet-in-Residence. Her poetry has been published in journals including Spelt Magazine, Wild Court, Under the Radar, Atrium, Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal, Finished Creatures, and The Lonely Crowd; and in anthologies from publishers such as Broken Sleep, The Emma Press, Paper Swans, Shoreline of Infinity, and Places of Poetry. Sarah won 1st prize in the Ver Poets Open Poetry Competition 2023, was highly commended in the Ginkgo Prize for Ecopoetry 2023, and was longlisted in the 2022 National Poetry Competition. She is a former winner of the William Blake Poetry Prize, the Wolverhampton Literature Festival poetry competition and Holland Park Press’s Brexit in Poetry; and has been a runner-up in the Keats-Shelley Poetry Prize and Keats-Shelley Essay Prize. A pamphlet of poems collaged from fragments of Dorothy Wordsworth’s journals – Something so wild and new in this feeling – was published by V. Press in 2021, and her second pamphlet, (m)othersongs, was released by the same publisher in autumn 2023. More at Sarah’s website: sarahdoyle.co.uk
Copies of (m)othersongs are available to purchase from the V. Press website, here.
