The poems in Fiona Benson’s Bioluminescent Baby detail the short, intense lives of insects. They were originally commissioned by University of Exeter’s ‘Project Urgency’ as a commentary on the looming biodiversity disaster, yet these various crawly creatures compel us even further through Benson’s careful and evocative words.
Motherhood, birth, and parental relationships are the three key components that make up JL Williams’ collection Origin. She explores all sides of what it means to be a mother: the pain of birth, raising a child when your own parents are absent, the fear of being in charge of another person’s life and their survival. Williams takes us into the depths of her psyche in all the stages of her pregnancy. We not only see her own fears of motherhood but our shared fears over bringing up a child in today’s society.
From the very start of Kate Clanchy’s The Not-Dead And The Saved (And Other Stories), we fall straight into her powerless mess of human nature responding to a power-hungry, often pessimistic world. Clanchy’s collection of short stories considers various forms of motherhood in respect to personal development. Through dimensional, flawed characters, and with notable proficiency, Read More
