The Emma Press Anthology of Aunts

By Rachel Piercey and Emma Dai'an Wright

At one remove from parental authority, aunts play a crucial role in the upbringing of children across the world. This anthology puts these women in the spotlight and explores what it means to be – and feels like to have – an aunt, historically and today. Some aunts are biological, some are chosen, but all have an impact on the way we learn to move through the world. Poets in this volume tell stories of glamorous confidants, akin to older siblings, and of older women, tough and worldly-wise, who offer their nieces and nephews a different perspective on life. Above all, the book restores their centrality to young people's development and to family life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Emma Press
• Release date: Oct 12, 2018
• ISBN: 9781912915019

Emma Dai'an Wright

Emma Dai'an Wright (1986) is a British-Chinese-Vietnamese publisher and illustrator. She worked in ebook production at Orion Publishing Group before leaving in 2012 to set up The Emma Press with the support of the Prince's Trust. She has since published over 500 writers across more than 70 books, including poetry anthologies for adults and children, short stories, and translations. In 2016 The Emma Press won the Michael Marks Award for Poetry Pamphlet Publishers. She lives in Birmingham.

Book preview

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The Emma Press Anthology of Aunts

OTHER TITLES FROM THE EMMA PRESS

POETRY ANTHOLOGIES

Urban Myths and Legends: Poems about Transformations

The Emma Press Anthology of the Sea

This Is Not Your Final Form: Poems about Birmingham

POETRY BOOKS FOR CHILDREN

Falling Out of the Sky: Poems about Myths and Monsters

Watcher of the Skies: Poems about Space and Aliens

Moon Juice, by Kate Wakeling

The Noisy Classroom, by Ieva Flamingo

PROSE PAMPHLETS

Postcard Stories, by Jan Carson

First fox, by Leanne Radojkovich

The Secret Box, by Daina Tabūna

POETRY PAMPHLETS

Dragonish, by Emma Simon

Pisanki, by Zosia Kuczyńska

Who Seemed Alive & Altogether Real, by Padraig Regan

Paisley, by Rakhshan Rizwan

THE EMMA PRESS PICKS

Malkin, by Camille Ralphs

DISSOLVE to: L.A., by James Trevelyan

The Dragon and The Bomb, by Andrew Wynn Owen

Meat Songs, by Jack Nicholls

Birmingham Jazz Incarnation, by Simon Turner

Bezdelki, by Carol Rumens

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For our aunts

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THE EMMA PRESS

First published in Great Britain in 2017 by the Emma Press Ltd

Poems copyright © individual copyright holders 2017

Selection copyright © Rachel Piercey and Emma Wright 2017

Introduction copyright © Rachel Piercey 2017

Illustrations copyright © Emma Wright 2017

All rights reserved.

The right of Rachel Piercey and Emma Wright to be identified as the editors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

ISBN 978-1-910139-66-0

A CIP catalogue record of this book

is available from the British Library.

Printed and bound in Great Britain

by TJ International, Padstow.

The Emma Press

theemmapress.com

[e-mail]

Birmingham, UK

Contents

Introduction, by Rachel Piercey

Travelling with Isaac, by Anna Woodford

The things they wrote, by Rob Walton

Sudbury Lunch, by Natalya Anderson

The Butcher’s Diamond, by Anita S. Pulier

A Cuddle of Aunts, by Winifred Mok

Great-Aunt Rose, by Gill McEvoy

Curfew, by Kayo Chingonyi

A Half-Cut Sestina, by David McKelvie

Betsey Trotwood sets the record straight, by Carole Bromley

Aunt Amy’s Parasol, by Angela Kirby

Auntie Peg, by Isabel S. Miles

Tailors, by Simon Williams

Jon Snow and the Joyces, by Jan Heritage

Aunt Syl, by Joan Michelson

She tells her nephew he’s mad to get more tats, by Kate White

My Favourite Aunt, by Brian Docherty

The Sex Lives of Aunts, by Margot Myers

Coal Tar, by Stephen Bone

Survivors, by Charlotte Eichler

What Will Your Sims Do Now? by Matthew Haigh

Broken Biscuits, by Kathleen Jones

Aunty, by Rachel Long

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Wing, by Mia

For the Aunts of Eighties Metal, by Elisabeth Sennitt Clough

Auntie Australia, by J V Birch

My oddest aunt, by Gill McEvoy

Sister, by Amy Evans