FAMILY LINES: POEMS ABOUT PARENTS AND PARENTHOOD (HB)

Poets have been writing about their parents or their children throughout history. Simon Armitage and Rachel Bower’s marvellous selection stretches from antiquity to the present day. We can enjoy father-and-son encounters from Homer alongside Roger Robinson’s; Christina Rossetti and Mary Jean Chan writing on mothers; the aftermath of childbirth according to William Blake and Hollie McNish. Whether measured in ‘sweet-wild weeks’ or ‘obstinate, exhausted mornings’, through ‘torment shared’ or ‘each miniscule miracle’ – this anthology celebrates what connects us across generations.