PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH THIS EXHIBIT
Please Do Not Touch This Exhibit explores disability, storytelling, and the process of mythologising trauma. Jen Campbell writes of Victorian circus and folklore, deep seas and dark forests, discussing her own relationship with hospitals — both as a disabled person, and as an adult reflecting on childhood while going through IVF.
A Poetry Book Society Autumn Recommendation
'Bold and assured. A delicate balance of wonder, playfulness and horrific revelation.' — Michel Faber
‘Jen Campbell's astounding second collection draws us into a world of mythology, sea monsters and metamorphosis. These are hauntingly beautiful poems that catalogue transformation in all of its horror and joy, strangeness and tenderness. Reading these poems is like being yanked off your feet by hidden currents. This book will burrow under your skin and stay there.’ – Cynthia Miller
‘These are poems which land the reader in the middle of a fantastical ocean; these are poems that create their own mythspaces on the unstable edges of disability and chronic illness, poems which conjure new ways of articulating things about the experience of living in a body which might usually feel beyond language.’ – Andrew McMillan
'I love these poems for their invention and bravery, their moving magic. Jen Campbell leads us to the places where land meets sea, and borders are precarious; where the tender longing for a child entwines with the struggle of IVF, and where the traumas of girlhood and womanhood, disability and enchantment are woven together in a complex and vivid tapestry. A beautiful collection.' — Liz Berry
'I was so affected by these intimate, wildly imaginative and elegant poems exploring disability and illness across personal, contemporary and historical landscapes... These poems draw you in so close it feels genuinely immersive.’ – Will Mackie, New Writing North)
introduction | more details here | sample poems
OUT NOW
PAPERBACK AND E-BOOK
Waterstones | Blackwells* (free international delivery)
Hive | Bookshop.org | Foyles | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
*indicates best links with international delivery options
A Poetry Book Society Autumn Recommendation
'Bold and assured. A delicate balance of wonder, playfulness and horrific revelation.' — Michel Faber
‘Jen Campbell's astounding second collection draws us into a world of mythology, sea monsters and metamorphosis. These are hauntingly beautiful poems that catalogue transformation in all of its horror and joy, strangeness and tenderness. Reading these poems is like being yanked off your feet by hidden currents. This book will burrow under your skin and stay there.’ – Cynthia Miller
‘These are poems which land the reader in the middle of a fantastical ocean; these are poems that create their own mythspaces on the unstable edges of disability and chronic illness, poems which conjure new ways of articulating things about the experience of living in a body which might usually feel beyond language.’ – Andrew McMillan
'I love these poems for their invention and bravery, their moving magic. Jen Campbell leads us to the places where land meets sea, and borders are precarious; where the tender longing for a child entwines with the struggle of IVF, and where the traumas of girlhood and womanhood, disability and enchantment are woven together in a complex and vivid tapestry. A beautiful collection.' — Liz Berry
'I was so affected by these intimate, wildly imaginative and elegant poems exploring disability and illness across personal, contemporary and historical landscapes... These poems draw you in so close it feels genuinely immersive.’ – Will Mackie, New Writing North)
introduction | more details here | sample poems
OUT NOW
PAPERBACK AND E-BOOK
Waterstones | Blackwells* (free international delivery)
Hive | Bookshop.org | Foyles | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
*indicates best links with international delivery options