Thanks very much for signing up to my newsletter. Here’s the bookish or book-adjacent bits and pieces that have been occupying me over the past few weeks. (You can find more of this kind of thing on my website, too)

My lockdown book baby Night Feeds and Morning Songs is out now! These poems will strike a chord with every mother, taking in every moment from the first flutters of pregnancy to towering teenage sons and even the empty nest. I LOVED editing it, and you can order from your local bookshop (The Haslemere Bookshop have signed copies with lovely postcards) or online now. (It is available from Bookshop.org, but a weird glitch means the title is wrong there.) Thank you – and sorry – to everyone who told me it made them cry. Me too.

A Damned Mob of Scribbling Women

I had the enormous pleasure of participating in an online event about women’s poetry for employees of Papa John’s Pizza this week, alongside superstar poet Nikita Gill. (Poetry and pizza? Put your hands together!) As I prepared, I thought again about how female writers of the past had to overcome social disapproval to write, publish or promote their work. Marketing your book was seen as unladylike and even scandalous – a little (delicate shudder) like selling yourself. None of this censure attached to male literary lions hawking their wares, but the arena of art was one in which the women were supposed to stand still and look winsome and inspiring. They were muse, never artist.

Women found ways round this. They published anonymously, like Jane Austen. (Virginia Woolf says, in A Room of One’s Own: “I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.”) They published under male pseudonyms like the Brontës and George Eliot. They published under gender neutral initials – I understand J K Rowling was told boys wouldn’t read her if she published as Joanne. They could be ‘published by others’ – so much less unseemly – like Anne Bradstreet who claimed her brother-in-law swiped her book, sailed from Massachusetts back to London with it and printed it in 1650 without her knowledge. (Her thirteen uses of the word ‘fame’ in the first three poems suggest she was perhaps a more active participant in the process that it was acceptable for her to admit, mind.)

Every time I cringe talking about my books on social media, or feel I’m underqualified to speak on the subjects on which I do (which is many times – and I am literally a book publicist) I remind myself that I am the heir to these centuries of pursed-lipped whiskery disapproval. Every awkwardly dismissed compliment, every self-deprecating aside is a symptom of that hangover. It’s plaited into our society and our own fibres at so deep a level that most women have never asked for a payrise. Nobody likes a swanker, but it’s ok to own your achievements.

I have a collection of things men have said about women writers that I include in my talks. “Intense thought spoils a lady’s features”, opined eighteenth century critic William Rose. Don’t furrow your pretty brows girls! Norman Mailer wrote in Advertisements for Myself that “a good novelist can do without everything but the remnant of his balls”, prompting Cynthia Ozick to ask him in 1971: “I’ve been wondering, Mr. Mailer, when you dip your balls in ink, what color ink is it?” Watch her glorious take down here. In 2011, V S Naipaul claimed no women writer was his equal and talked about ‘feminine tosh’ (definitely the title of my imaginary garage band’s first EP.) But in my research this week I found a new favourite. In 1855, Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of The Scarlet Letter, wrote to his publisher that American was now dominated by “a damned mob of scribbling women.” And that’s such a doozy, I think I want merch. Would wear that shirt in a heartbeat.

Talking and Writing

I was delighted to be asked to write a piece banging my usual drum about what poetry does for Oh! Magazine.

I had a really fun chat about why women’s stories aren’t heard and – well – wiping, actually, with Katharine Perry of @theMumPoemPress, one of the brilliant poets in Night Feeds. You can watch again here.

To celebrate World Poetry Day, I talked about motherhood and writing with two more of the poets in Night Feeds and Morning Songs – Imogen Russell Williams and Deborah Alma – for Wandsworth Libraries. You can watch our conversation here.

I wrote a piece for Independent.co.uk about mothers’ stories not being listened to, particularly during the pandemic, which I tried to do without getting too cross. It had been up two minutes before a man helpfully informed me that women were actually happier in the 1950s, which kind of made my point for me! I guess he never read The Feminine Mystique.

She is Fierce will be discussed by the Cliterature book group run by the Vagina Museum on Thursday 25th March at 7pm and I’m so excited to be dropping in after the discussion to answer questions. You can get tickets for the Zoom here.

I’m also looking forward to talking about Night Feeds and Morning Songs, motherhood and writing for a free online event with the Haslemere Bookshop on March 30th at 8pm. Email thehaslemerebookshop@outlook.com if you’d like to join.

What I’ve been reading

Featured poem

I loved Jo Brandon’s new collection Cures and share this poem from it with her kind permission. It’s a book bursting with wit and ideas, with characters including a ratcatcher, a drunk, a mermaid and volcano women. You can buy direct from the publisher, and support the brilliant indie Valley Press, here.

New on the blog

Other stuff I’ve enjoyed this month

• I read an early proof for After The Storm Emma Jane Unsworth’s amazing upcoming memoir about Post-Natal Depression and utter weirdness of new motherhood and it’s exceptional: sharply observed, beautifully written and so important. It’s published in May.

• I found more Virginia Andrews content, you’re so welcome! This Lit Century podcast in two parts was entertaining and brilliantly researched – I loved the list of things about Flowers in the Attic that were particularly 1970s including labouring the difference between ‘gourmet’ and ‘gourmand’.

• I’m really enjoying The Motherhood Sessions, a newsletter on motherhood and creativity by Nathalie Marquez Courtney with fascinating articles and beautiful photography. You can read the latest and sign up here.

• This thoughtful and often beautiful Radio 4 programme, Ode to Bed, put together by Rachel Long is a great listen. (Includes adult content from the always sensational Kim Addonizio and others.)

• This Blood Brothers podcast with Stu Turton, author of The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle and The Devil and the Dark Water, is fascinating about these epic, brilliant books and so much fun. Like a literary night out in the pub – about the highest praise I can give anything.

• I’ve also been bingeing Nell Frizzell’s excellent The Panic Years podcast and have loved her interviews with Rob Delaney, Saima Mir, Daisy Buchanan and Pandora Sykes so far.

Thanks for reading! Any feedback would be gratefully received, and if you enjoyed this newsletter please don’t hesitate to share with likeminded readers.