Slip

A provocative debut poetry collection about the one in three women who have an abortion by the time they are 45 Amelia Loulli opens this fearless, frank, absorbing debut with the words 'I'm going to tell you what happened', and that is precisely what she does: If our mothers could see us now corridors of girls lifting legs like candles to the stirrups One in three women in Britain will have an abortion by the time they are 45. For such a common procedure it still carries social stigma, and has not been the subject of a book of poetry - not, at least, until now. With these careful, generous, insistent poems, we are led through the experience: surprised at every turn. There is vulnerability and despair, there is the shame and silence too, but there is also the constant, steady pulse of compassion, tenderness and wonder at the world. Slip is a daring book, not just in subject but in style: skilfully worked, integrating the rich terror of nursery rhymes and folk tales with the bland banalities and euphemisms of social interaction, of medical techniques. It is also, sadly, a necessary book - provocative and transformative poetry about women as mothers and survivors. A cry of fury and a cry of love.

Amelia Loulli is a PhD candidate at Newcastle University where she researches the poetics of breath and writing trauma. In 2021 she won a Northern Writers' Award and in 2023 she was writer in residence at the British School at Rome. She currently lives in Cumbria with her three teenagers and their whippet.