Lungs

‘Lungs’ is a captivating collection of poetry that transcends the boundaries of the ordinary. The author presents a exploration of the human condition, where reality blurs with the fantastical and every verse feels like an intimate reflection on change and rebirth. Through a mixture of playful wit and deep analysis, Lungs helps readers to start an emotional journey to explore the fragility of our identity, reflecting on the moments that define our past and the quiet battles we fight within. By contemplating our experiences, we will be rewarded with personal evolution and a deep understanding of real transformation.

‘In Ailsa Holland’s poignant, irreverent, dark, funny and deeply thoughtful collection, ‘Lungs’ are breath, breath is life, and life is colourful, messy, painful, joyous, filled with people and with aloneness, seasoned with love and grief. Dancing between the mundane and the transcendent, there are goddesses, there is birth and death and oh so many questions, with playful lung-inspired images giving us a moment to pause and catch our breaths.’ (Tania Hershman)

‘Ailsa Holland knows that being a woman is ‘not for cissies’. Nor is it ‘a circus of paints/ and nails and lashes and heels and tucks,/ it’s just this body’. The cast of voices she assembles, from Ophelia to Mary Magdalene to Calliope to her dying mother know this too. It is about sex, salt, children, work, fatigue, bones and trilobites. To read it is to feel enlarged, capacious, full, not out, of breath. This is a book for everyone.’ (Anthony Wilson)

‘‘Lungs’ is earthed in our everyday experiences and sometimes angry. Between poems of fossil song, crying with laughter and fuckedupness, Holland’s photographs of lungs also sit; quietly crafted, these visual assemblages invite us to explore the materiality of respiration. Ink bottles of wasting time doodles and paired slices of bread play on symmetries of air sacs made from the very matter of her words. For all imps and menopausal mermaids, bring a cuppa and feel the love.’ (Jules Sprake)

104 pages incl 12 double-spread full-colour photographs