You never know how things really are in other people’s families, in other people’s homes. There’s the public face and the private truths – the personal griefs and tragedies, whether festering or resting in peace. In her wry, engagingly strange poems, Anne Bailey takes the door off the latch and lets us inside.
She shows us loss and disappointment, as well as hardness and resilience, particularly through the eyes of a daughter, wife and mother. We see the domestic sphere in such close-up detail that it becomes bizarre, an uncanny dimension that nonetheless rings horribly, weirdly true.
‘So you’ve put a picture on the lovely blank wall
that used to go pink in the sun
and feel like an ice cream.
A wall on which I used to rest my eyes
in pleasant contemplation.’
– from 'Domestic'
About the author
Anne Bailey is a Yorkshirewoman now living and writing poetry in North Norfolk. She has worked as a teacher, a mother and a couples counsellor in London. She is a committee member for Café Writers, organising poetry events in Norwich. Her poem ‘What the River did Next’ was commended in the 2021 Ambit Poetry Competition. You can find her on Twitter: @Anneebai
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