Emma Press Poetry Anthologies – serie

The poets write with searing honesty about the incredible strength and capacity for self-sacrifice demanded by motherhood, writing as parents as well as in relation to their own parents. The darkest thoughts of exhausted mothers are sensitively portrayed, as poets expose the weight of responsibility behind the hallowed state of motherhood, and question the expectations society places on mothers. This book gives voice to universal but usually silenced anxieties, showing mothers questioning their ability to raise their children correctly and sometimes struggling to connect with the creatures they have created. Heart-breaking and uplifting in equal measure, this book is a stunning and varied portrait of modern motherhood.

The Emma Press Anthology of Dance is a celebration of dance and the role it plays in people's lives. This lively collection considers the formal occasions where dancing is expected – weddings, school discos and office parties – as well as the impromptu moments where dancing is drawn from us on a more primal level. Flirting in the kitchen that becomes a shuffle choreographed by intimacy; a weary couple who find solace in a drunken half-stumble half-jig. What makes us start dancing? Why do we ever stop? This anthology examines the defiance and drama of dancing both on stage and off, capturing the passion and exhilaration of rhythmic motion to music.

We’re all ageing, all of the time. As a society we’re getting even older, but we seldom seem to stop and think about the huge mental and physical changes that happen to us as we get old, or what it’s like to live as an old person. The Emma Press Anthology of Age is a collection of poems which challenge, celebrate and give age a voice, finding humour amidst the heartbreak and comfort within the pain.

Aren’t mildly erotic things the most erotic of all? Sometimes eroticism isn’t just about sex – it can be about anticipation, desire, intimacy and romance. It can be wild, hilarious, beautiful and alarming, and it may be hard to define but you’ll know it when you see it. Mildly Erotic Verse skips the mechanics and dives straight into the emotional core of sex, celebrating the diversity and eccentricity of human sexuality.

From interactions with hot oncologists to life-threatening hospital stays to a really bad case of glandular fever. Whether a diagnosis is life-altering or treatable, a total surprise or painfully invisible, The Emma Press Anthology of Illness explores what we wish people knew about being ill, and whether finding that 'new normal' is ever possible.

In The Emma Press Anthology of Love, that familiar four-letter word takes on a world of meanings. Love is written across the sky for the whole world to see, and whispered to a partner at the bus stop in the rain. Love is transcendent and love is everyday, found equally in steamy texts and shopping lists, and the only reliable thing about it is that it's never where you expected to find it. Building on the success of 2015's Mildly Erotic Verse, this book explores the diversity of modern romance. Often awkward, never perfect, romantic encounters and relationships are rooted in our own contemporary world of Tinder, Twitter and TV dinners. But they are also part of an enduring tradition: the cornerstone of our common humanity. In this book, thirty fresh, diverse and original voices speak to what love means right here, right now, bridging the gap between Hollywood imagery and modern lived experience.

At one remove from parental authority, aunts play a crucial role in the upbringing of children across the world. This anthology puts these women in the spotlight and explores what it means to be – and feels like to have – an aunt, historically and today. Some aunts are biological, some are chosen, but all have an impact on the way we learn to move through the world. Poets in this volume tell stories of glamorous confidants, akin to older siblings, and of older women, tough and worldly-wise, who offer their nieces and nephews a different perspective on life. Above all, the book restores their centrality to young people’s development and to family life.

The Emma Press Book of Beasts rustles and roars with the voices of animals and humans, co-existing on Earth with varying degrees of harmony. A scorpion appears in a shower; a deer jumps in front of a car. A swarm of snowfleas seethes through leaf litter; children bait a gorilla at the zoo. The poems in this anthology examine hierarchy, herds, power, and the price we pay for belonging.

Travelling from one place to another is never as simple as getting from A to B. Whether you’re sailing in a stately cruise liner or running for a grimy commuter train, your mode of transport affects the way you look at the things around you. Travel can even make us question who we are at home: will we be the same person at the other end of the journey?The poems in this anthology look at the ways in which travelling can change us, whether we enjoy or endure it. They take in not only day-trippers and business travellers, but characters who are forced to voyage against their will, as well as those with no choice but to stay put. Whatever your destination, this book is a companion for the journey, exploring the nuances of the strange state of being in transit.

The Emma Press Anthology of Contemporary Gothic Verse is haunting, romantic, and full of dark doorways and strange spaces which readers will get thoroughly lost in. It's a hand in a velvet glove, ready to grasp you by the elbow and lead you through an array of ravishing and heart-racing encounters. This anthology engages deeply and playfully with the rich and unsettling tradition of gothic literature from which these poems emerge, and updates it for a 21st century readership. The featured poets twist traditional stories, set the rule books on fire, and know that to truly surprise and unnerve, you may have to traverse some wild, remote places...