Swell

(Paperback)

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Eloquent and uncompromising, Swell explores the triumphs and hardships of the journey to new motherhood - through pregnancy, miscarriage, birth and beyond In the consultation room I stared at the purple flowers in their purple vase and imagined my insides- an ocean, a cave, a storm. Maria Ferguson's second poetry collection is a raw and powerful documentation of one woman's experience of becoming a mother. Against a backdrop of the sounds and sensations of daily life, she longs for her own mother's embrace, observes as her body changes and charts a course through loss and wilting house plants toward recovery, empowerment and renewal. Tender, direct and winningly witty, Swell distils the poet's complex feelings surrounding family and domesticity, exploring the contending weight and levity felt as she contemplates a thrillingly unfamiliar new chapter. Ferguson is a poet as alert to the absurd as to the shattering, and these are large-hearted poems, full of life and thought. Together, they invite the reader to join them in a search for self-acceptance, for freedom from shame, and for a path to stability in increasingly uncertain times.

Author Bio

Maria Ferguson is a writer and performer. Her poetry has been widely published and anthologized, and her debut collection, Alright, Girl (Burning Eye, 2020), was Highly Commended in the Forward Prizes. On the stage, her one-woman show Fat Girls Don't Dance (Oberon, 2017) won the Saboteur Award for Best Spoken Word Show; Essex Girl (Oberon, 2019) was shortlisted for the Tony Craze Award and won Show of the Week at VAULT Festival. She has been commissioned by the Royal Academy of Art, Stylist magazine and BBC Radio. She currently lives in Leeds.