A stunning collection of poems from Grace Nichols, winner of the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry 2021

Beauty

is a fat black woman

walking the fields

pressing a breezed

hibiscus

to her cheek

while the sun lights up

her feet

Nichols gives us images that stare us straight in the eye, images of joy, challenge, accusation. Her 'fat black woman' is brash; rejoices in herself; poses awkward questions to politicians, rulers, suitors, to a white world that still turns its back. Grace Nichols writes in a language that is wonderfully vivid yet economical of the pleasures and sadnesses of memory, of loving, of 'the power to be what I am, a woman, charting my own futures'.

'Unquestionably one of our most important living poets' i-D magazine

'Not only rich music, an easy lyricism, but also grit, and earthy honesty, a willingness to be vulnerable and clean' Gwendolyn Brooks

'Beneath the folk rhythms and the lyrical simplicities, Nichols's poems preach disquiet' Observer

'Grace Nichols has wit, acidity, tenderness, any number of gifts at her disposal' Jeanette Winterson