Sylvanian Family / Summer Young

‘One of the most remarkable debut pamphlets I have read in a long time. A haunted dollhouse of beautifully crafted humour and pain. Summer Young has captured something powerful here, a bizarre examination of love and what it means to suffer each other. I can’t stop thinking about it.’ Bobby Parker

‘In each poem in Sylvanian Family, Young presents us a set piece for formative experiences to be radically questioned, transformed, reclaimed. A deft personal portrait, with cerebral backflips and left hooks of humour throughout, every poem stings.’ Antosh Wojcik

Reading Summer Young is like folding yourself into a deceptively miniature world, a cat’s eye view of a dystopian Wonderland. Here, shoe prints are rabbit snares, a mother is a mountain, the trellis-like family home encompasses a complex ecosystem of cockroaches and fireflies, mice and sea urchins. In this arresting debut, Young invokes the visceral candor of Tracey Emin and Sarah Lucas, and confronts trauma with a fierce and virtuosic wit.

Like any good daughter I tie the bedsheets
into a rope for my father
to escape the house he set alight

PAPERBACK      ISBN: 978-1-913268-11-4     PUBLISHED 3OTH JULY 2020