The aunts have arrived!

Published on Tuesday 23 April 2013

Ten Poems about Aunts has just arrived in the office, so you will need to make room in your life for Aunt Em, Aunt Beatrice, Aunt Edith, Aunt Constance, Aunt Maud, Aunt Bertha, Aunt Julia, Aunt Sue, and Great Aunt Martha Hearn Clode, among other wonderful women who feature in the pamphlet.

These women represent different types of aunts you may be familiar with from your own family: there’s a stoical, story-telling aunt described by Langston Hughes, or Norman McCaig’s aunt who keeps coins in her teapot. You may even, if you’re lucky, have one of the sorts of aunts Virginia Graham describes, the generous aunt who will take you in and give you tea and advice when you need it most.

There isn’t a national Aunts’ Day in the UK (yet) but we felt that aunts should have their own pamphlet, partly because we think they deserve more recognition for the roles they play in our lives, and also because so many brilliant and fun poems have been written about them.

The cover illustration and the illustrations inside are by Nottingham-based artist Amy Blackwell.