Sophie Hannah and Martina Evans Poetry Launch, at Heffers bookshop

Join Carcanet poets Sophie Hannah & Martina Evans to launch their new collections publishing this summer, joined by poet Nic Aubury.

Work Experience by Sophie Hannah

This new poetry collection from the award-winning, bestselling crime writer reveals a fresh, exhilarating register of her work. Maverick and irreverent, Hannah’s poems delight in rhyme and rhythm, embracing wit, play and subversive intelligence.Alongside the poems sit the librettos of Sophie’s two acclaimed stage musicals, The Mystery of Mr E and Work Experience, blending song, satire and dramatic bite. Together, they offer a fierce and funny critique of how society treats children and teenagers, how we define work and worth, and what it means to grow up inside systems obsessed with productivity and profit. From a poet studied across GCSE, A Level and degree courses throughout the UK, this is a book that entertains even as it challenges – alive to the absurdities of the modern world.

Drunken Driving by Martina Evans

Drunken Driving is the funny and subversive sequel to Martina Evans’s narrative poem The Coming Thing, set ten years on. Imelda, now a young mother, is married to Carl. When she gets a job in the X-ray Department at Pentonville Pr*son and learns to drive, her previous preoccupations with life and death and abuse of power are intensified within the Pr*son walls.The sonnets are ‘cuffed’ by quotes from Dracula and Pr*son security rules, providing ironic commentary on the main narrative exploring issues of control. This timely collection delivers dark comedy as it raises serious questions about human society during the present international Pr*son crisis, with the UK Pr*son system on the verge of collapse.

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