Sunshine by Melissa Lee-Houghton

Sunshine

Melissa Lee-Houghton

Without doubt these are some of the most uncompromising poems you'll read this year. Raw, powerful, daring, challenging, stark are words that could be easily pinned onto this collection. It's not an easy read, sometimes uncomfortable, but for bold, honest poetry - this book rewards.

Extract
in the nineties Aunty Ann had all eight
rooms wired into the same Sky station
but since we didn't know we spent each night
of our weekend watching girls undress
while bored men phoned in, telling them to
climb between each other's legs/and/or
take a nipple into a yielding/heterosexual
mouth, force a simple moan perfected in adolescence.
We had our double bed with its chintzy canopy,
our newly pink hair rubbing onto the pillowcases,
the crochet eiderdown heavy upon our
satisfied bodies; she was
sometimes jealous if I looked at the TV
for too long.

From My Girl
Parallels
  • Physical by Andrew McMillan
  • Northline by Willy Vlautin
  • Let Them Eat Chaos by Kate Tempest
Borrow this book
Violence
Explicit sexual content