It's not a sun, or moon, but has something of their capacity to shine. It's the colours and how they fell into place, randomly. This was a mat I made for my daughter, a rather wonderful photographer living in the Netherlands.
This year my seventh collection of poems comes out with Salt Publishing. My first collection, Powder Tower, was published in 1994, the year she was born. In glorious ignorance when it was shortlisted for the 1995 TS Eliot prize I had no idea of how lucky I was. Well, two small children, freelance working - daily life was distracting.
But this collection's title, Making the Wedding Dress, marks a lifetime of change from gunpowder to silk...and the wedding dress was real, for my daughter. My son played piano as she walked into the hall with her dad. The sequence about sewing that gave the book its title does feel like it's summing up a lifetime making clothes, covers, mats, bags, costumes, you name it - whatever scraps and a machine can come up with. Zero waste, repurposing, there are new terms but I feel sewing's about respect as well as meditation. And the rest of the book - there are strange poems about modern living, the tensions we exist among, about money, sadness about lost species that were part of my childhood and I thought would always be around, like snowy winters, watching age catch up and wring out memory. How lucky, though, to have a cover image from my fabulous friend Jane Fordham, whose work is continually surprising, revealing, unique. @janesybillafordham
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