Our featured publication for July and August is Walrussey by Bex Hainsworth, published by Black Cat Poetry Press.

‘This brilliantly-titled collection describes an abundance of sea and shore creatures, capturing them in a visionary net of language. Here are poems bearing witness to the stoic innocence and the survival skills of jellyfish and manatee, ancient blind shark and sunfish. Meticulous and lyrical attention to detail is evident throughout; the poems are inventive, compassionate; they convey the fragility of life and the long planetary history we share with our fellow creatures.  Each creature is given resonant personhood. I have greatly enjoyed submerging myself in the wonders and the timely warnings of this collection.‘ Penelope Shuttle

‘In Bex Hainsworth’s Walrussey we take a dive into the poetry of witness to these “unusual shells”. Here are odes to the creatures of the sea, an “ocean in miniature”. Hainsworth’s poems develop our empathy for her sea creations, from the glorious cathedral of a whale to an early morning manatee. This connection to a fragile environment enables us, like the Octopus in her opening poem, to see the beauty in the fragile.‘ Jessica Mookherjee

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Walrussey

Previously published on Atrium

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An Octopus Picks Litter at the End of the World

Previously published in Typehouse Magazine, nominated for a Pushcart Prize

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Consider the Selkie

Previously published in Visual Verse

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Blue Lobster

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Bex Hainsworth is a poet and teacher who was born in Bradford, West Yorkshire, and is currently based in Leicester, UK. She won the Collection HQ Prize as part of the East Riding Festival of Words and has been shortlisted in the Welsh Poetry Competition, Waltham Forest Poetry Competition, and the AUB International Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared in Atrium, Ink Sweat & Tears, Honest Ulsterman, bath magg, and One Hand Clapping. Walrussey, her debut pamphlet of ecopoetry, is published by The Black Cat Poetry Press. Twitter: @PoetBex Instagram: @poet.bex Bluesky: @poetbex.bsky.social

Copies of Walrussey are available to purchase from the Black Cat Poetry Press website here.