five fantastic poems by Hollie McNish

I am going away for a weekend in October, it's going to be my first weekend away since I had my first child. He's just turned eleven. My husband could not believe this could possibly be true. Neither could I. But it is, and it's time.

I'm off down to my home town, for the Ilkley Literature Festival, or a bit of it anyway. I'm going to see Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall with my Mum. I may swoon, she's assured me, she won't. I'm going to see some local poets with my Dad. I am going to meet with friends I've known since middle school for lunch at Bettys. And I am going to lots and lots of events.

One of the poets I'm going to see is Hollie McNish. I cannot wait. She's chuffing marvellous. You can go see her too, if you're near Ilkley, there are still tickets for sale here. And if you can't make it, if you don't know what all the fuss is about, or if you'd just like to Hollie fix, here are five of my favourites of her poems right now.

Embarrassed is the poem that I first heard about. I used to work in breastfeeding research, looking at things that might help support women to feed their babies themselves. This will do it. This and more.

But it's not just breastfeeding that I completely agree with Hollie on, here's her marvellous take on immigration.

and this, this I don't even have words for

I love how little kids feel about their bodies, and about mine. I am trying to learn to respect the good stuff, the strength, the growing of actual human beings, the ability to recover. I know that I look good if I feel good, and nobody else cares how fat or wrinkly I am, and I try not to worry about how acceptable I look, but it's not easy. This is a great poem on the subject.

and this is the last one I'm sharing today, but I'm yet to find a Hollie McNish poem I don't like.

Let me know if you are going to see Hollie in Ilkley this year. No pressure Hollie, but I'm expecting you to be great!

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A wee update

Hello! Thought I'd give you a wee update on how things are going in my world! Little Gods came out with Roswell Press at the end of September 2023 and I was really busy for the first bit of October, reading poems from the new book at various local events. I'm really grateful for all the books people bought, but there's still copies available, either online via Amazon for Kindle or in paperback, or you can get in touch with me at caralmckee (at) gmail (dot) com to get a signed copy of Little Gods and/or First Kiss sent to you in the post! After my reading frenzy at the beginning of October I took a little break for a birthday celebration frenzy (it's still going on, there's a lot to celebrate). I've been meaning to read a couple of poems online too, but I'm having a flare of trigeminal neuralgia which is triggered by talking, so that will come when it comes. I'm hoping to read at the Scottish Writer's Centre launch of their new Mountain & Glen

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It was lovely to be invited to do an interview with the marvellous Gutter magazine in the light of my poem, Bending to Nightbreak , being published (in fabulous company) in issue 27. Here's a couple of pics they shared on Instagram from it - a picture of me, and a quote. You can find the whole interview, and one with Simon Wade too, here .

Chapbook number two is coming!

Great news today as I'm working on a new chapbook coming soon with Roswell Publishing. This is all I'm going to show you right now - my beautiful notebook, picked up at the Bronte Parsonage Museum in Haworth, on my last ever day out with my Mum. This notebook is full of mostly glued in, revised, scribbled on and annotated poems, some of which are going in to the new wee collection with Roswell. Why did I want to work with Roswell Publishing for this collection? I was following Rae on Instagram because I'd seen her pop up in some other writerly stuff I was interested in, and she seemed to be working with a load of writers I am currently obsessed with - like Claire Askew, Kate Garrett, and Alice Tarbuck for example, so when I saw she was calling for submissions, I went for it. She's been such a joy to work with so far, and I look forward to being able to tell you more about my second chapbook! Find out more about Roswell Publishing on their website , or head over to the

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