Our featured publication for Summer is How to Leave a Body by Holly Winter-Hughes, published by Verve Poetry Press.

‘Holly Winter-Hughes’ visceral writing turns the human form inside-out, mapping the contours of trauma, abuse and hard-won resilience. It urges the reader to follow and ‘Breathe deep to the creak of your heartwood’. Darkly imaginative and pearled with fresh phrase-making, these are poems that compel attention and linger.‘ John McCullough

‘Holly’s poetry leaves red shapes on my skin, and teeth marks. Unapologetically incandescent images twist tightly and then open into wide, revelatory spaces. The thin blade of a plastic- handled knife flashes in the dark of cold-roomed poems, but beside my shoulder as I read there is always an older, kinder spirit. It says, ‘Look – this, yes, and this.’ And yet, somehow, the spirit is still singing. I love this collection.‘ Tom Hirons

‘Holly writes with the whiplash of thunder.’ Antony Owen

‘An electrifying poet with Plath-like power and potency. Such fire!‘ Anna Saunders

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Straight Girls Are Easier to Imitate

Previously published in Impossible Archetype

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Thin Air

Previously published in Clarion

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How to Find Your Way Home

Previously published in Lapidus Magazine

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Holly Winter-Hughes is especially passionate about using writing to express the stories we hold in our bodies. This comes through in both her poetry and her facilitation. Her work has been commissioned by various organisations including Apples & Snakes, Live & Local and Arvon. She has performed extensively across the UK including at Ledbury Poetry Festival, for Raise the Bar, for Cheltenham Poetry Festival and for the BBC. She is passionate about raising the voices of underrepresented people and as such, is the founder and CEO of The Word Association CIC (who have published over 30 anthologies from marginalised communities). She is currently studying for a Masters degree in Creative Writing for Therapeutic Purposes, and starts her PhD in restorying the body in autumn 2025 at University of Birmingham. Holly is a widely published writer, most recently appearing in Atrium, Clarion, Impossible Archetype, Ink, Sweat & Tears, Lapidus and Tears in the Fence.

Copies of How to Leave a Body are available to purchase from the Verve Poetry Press website, or directly from Holly Winter-Hughes, here.