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Day #5: The Year of the Hog: “Before it’s too late” – Sarah Thomson

 

Over the next few weeks we are celebrating all of the Poets and their Collections that we have published in 2020.

Today we have Sarah Thomson stepping forward from her conversations in poetry with Nigel Kent, A Hostile Environment and Thinking You Home for her brilliant first collection for Hedgehog, Before it’s too late.

This eclectic collection of poetry explores the fragility and impermanence of all that is precious in this world – ourselves, our loved ones, our homes, our familiar places, our countries and more generally life on planet earth and beyond.

Considers the challenge of achieving a balance between holding onto and honouring the past and letting it go to enable us to live well in the present and value what we have in the here and now.

Acknowledges the need to endure struggles, accept our mortality and embrace both endings and new beginnings with hope.

All expressed in a variety of forms – Villanelle, Fibonacci, Pantoums, Triolets, Concrete, Specular and free verse.

To get in touch with Sarah and order Signed Copies of her work, message her on Twitter – @SarahPThomson

To order a copy from Hedgehog go HERE

To order an eBook go HERE

About Sarah Thomson

Sarah grew up by the sea in Weymouth, Dorset and now lives in Bristol. She developed a love for writing from an early age and her studies included English at the University of Exeter. After a varied career in publishing, accountancy and Human Resources, Sarah is now a full-time writer of poetry, novels and lyrics. In 2017 she was shortlisted for the Bridport Prize and a winner of the Persimmon International Poets Competition. Her poem ‘Mercy’ was highly commended by The Hedgehog Poetry Press and published in The Road to Clevedon Pier in 2018. The Hedgehog Poetry Press also published ‘A Hostile Environment’, her poetry conversation with Nigel Kent, in the same year and a second conversation ‘Thinking you Home’ in 2019.

Product details

  • Paperback : 28 pages
  • ISBN-10 : 1913499022
  • Product Dimensions : 14.81 x 0.18 x 21.01 cm
  • ISBN-13 : 978-1913499020
  • To get in touch with Sarah and order Signed Copies of her work, message her on Twitter – @SarahPThomson

‘Sarah Thomson’s Before it’s too late captures the contradictory nature of humanity. We are deeply flawed: we destroy the planet, we make war, and we often don’t appreciate what is valuable until it’s too late. Yet we’re also capable of selfless, enduring love. Her gentle and moving poems show us that it’s these connections with others that give life its meaning and make it fulfilling. Thomson’s chapbook leaves us with a challenge: like the two shadows in her ‘At the cinema’ we can sit and watch life pass us by, or, as she exhorts Ellen to do in the book’s final poem, we can ‘live life with love.’ Nigel Kent, poet

Individual feedback for ‘Lament of a Sperm Whale’ from Isabelle Kenyon, Fly on the Wall Press ‘We particularly enjoyed the use of language which really delved into how an animal like a Whale may think’

Individual feedback for ‘Song for Ellen’ from granddaughter Ellen, aged 6 ‘I never thought someone would write a poem for me. It made me cry a bit but it was a very, very happy cry’

On hearing the poems: ‘The poet has a ‘mogelijkheid’, an ability to absorb and transmit the emotion of a situation so that the reader feels it too.’ Hans Vermeulen, businessman.

On hearing the poems: ‘The difference between ordinary and extra-ordinary is just…that little extra!’ Anton Mullan, Composer.