I’m thrilled about the cover for my second poetry collection, published by Cinnamon Press in October 2020.
The poems in Sweet Anaesthetist explore what shapes us, in the womb, and in the world. With one eye on how the politics of the outside world shape our daily lives, the poems are rooted in the natural world, from the Hebrides to the ancient landscape of East Lothian. There are poems in a wide variety of voices and forms. Themes include birds, in many times and places; the unnoticed creatures that share our homes; LGBT+ lives (including my own); mothers and mothering; unflinching poems about the body, the medical system, and living with cancer.
Jay Whittaker, Edinburgh-based poet 