My new poetry collection The Lost Art of Ironing will be published by Hedgehog Poetry Press on 19th August 2024 but I will be selling early copies from 30th May onwards, priced at £10 (including postage and packing) or £11 if you would like a signed copy.
To order one or more copies direct from me, please click on this PayPal link. Then select ‘send’, and specify ‘Lost Art of Ironing’ with your delivery address. If you have problems with the link, or you prefer to pay by cheque or BACS, please message me on social media or contact me via this website. Many thanks.
You can read more about the collection below and have a look at reviews in The Journal and The High Window.
In The Lost Art of Ironing, the metaphorical iron smooths out life’s creases as well as crumpled clothes, with poems about women as lovers, wives, mothers, muses, and editors and curators of their own lives. There are meditations on Emily Dickinson, Anne Sexton, George Sand and Lisa Gherardini (better known as ‘the Mona Lisa’). And the collection ends with five modern versions of Shakespeare’s best-loved sonnets, looking at time, love and mortality in the digital age. These poems sparkle with wit and wisdom and shed new light on the way women’s lives have changed – and not changed.
“Here is a true poet. No game playing, no showing off, no trying to impress. These poems go straight to the heart of what it means to be alive in the day-to-day world most of us occupy. I’m amazed this is her first collection.” Brian Patten
“A sensitive and assured collection. Kelly Davis reflects on many aspects of her life and family history in tones that range from sorrow through wistfulness to wry humour. Her poems are both wise and probing. She anchors her reflections firmly in the real world, an accurate observer who can see poetic potential in humdrum subject-matter. Her poems might be placed in a tradition coming down to her through Heaney, but she surprises the reader with her fresh insights. She is fully in charge of her craft throughout, using free verse and fixed forms to equally good effect. She has a knack for choosing which forms will best suit her concerns, which range widely. It is particularly unusual (and uplifting) to find a contemporary poet who handles the sonnet form so well. This is a book to treasure and return to; each re-reading will yield new enjoyment.” Lucy Newlyn
“This collection offers the accumulated riches of a life well lived. ‘To My Hands’ provides an autobiographical framework; other poems sketch family history, sometimes tragic. But the heart of this book is celebration. ‘The Big Room’ is worthy of a place where jigs were danced and Christmases were celebrated. ‘But now it’s mainly just the two of us / reading quietly in armchairs on either side of the hearth.’ The celebration extends to Maryport where this house is located, which has seen better days but has ‘the best bloody sunsets in England.’ Yea! There is so much to enjoy here.” John Freeman