Egg/Shell

The Poetry Book Society Spring Choice 2024A Telegraph Book of the Year 2024Winner of the Farmgate Cafe National Poetry Award 2025'It is hard to hurt and then explain the hurt away / so as not to hurt anyone. But have you seen / my life?' ('Child of Lir')The lives depicted by Victoria Kennefick alter, shatter and recombine in stunning monologues, innovative hybrid forms and piercing lyrics: her second book Egg/Shell is a diptych, a double album, which explores early motherhood and miscarriage, and the impact of a spouse's gender transition and the dissolution of a marriage. Acclaimed as one of the boldest poetic voices to emerge in recent years, Kennefick, in the follow-up to her best-selling Eat or We Both Starve, breaks new ground with generosity, emotional complexity, formal ingenuity and wit.