Swell (Paperback) - Maria Ferguson

'There is an honesty that is both heart-breaking and more hopeful than anything else I've read on this subject. She makes me weep and wonder in equal measure' Hollie McNish

Eloquent and uncompromising, Swell explores the triumphs and hardships of the journey to new motherhood - through pregnancy, miscarriage, birth and beyond

In the consultation room I stared
at the purple flowers in their purple
vase and imagined my insides:
an ocean, a cave, a storm.

Maria Ferguson's second poetry collection is a raw and powerful documentation of one woman's experience of becoming a mother. Against a backdrop of the sounds and sensations of daily life, Ferguson observes her body changing and charts a course through loss and wilting house plants, towards recovery, empowerment and renewal.

Tender, direct and winningly witty, Swell navigates the complexities of family and domesticity, exploring the contending weight and levity felt in this thrillingly unfamiliar new chapter. Ferguson is a poet as alert to the absurd as to the shattering, and these are large-hearted poems, full of life and thought. Together, they invite the reader to join them in a search for self-acceptance, for freedom from shame, and for a path to stability in increasingly uncertain times.

About the Author

Maria Ferguson is a writer and performer. Her poetry has been widely published and anthologized, and her debut collection, Alright, Girl? (Burning Eye, 2020), was highly commended in the Forward Prize. On the stage, her one-woman show Fat Girls Don't Dance (Oberon, 2017) won the Saboteur Award for Best Spoken Word Show; Essex Girl (Oberon, 2019) was shortlisted for the Tony Craze Award and won Show of the Week at the VAULT Festival. She has been commissioned by the Royal Academy of Art, Stylist magazine and BBC Radio. She currently lives in Leeds.