GRAFFITI BOOKS
Derek Healy
UNCHARTED
Uncharted by Derek Healy was published in September of this year (2022). It is his third full length collection of poems, following Home ( Graffiti Books 2020) and Made Strange By Time
(Matador 2018).
Of Uncharted Alison Chisholm wrote 'Derek Healy brings together poems of joy and wit, the marvels of the extent of our universe, a lament for – and celebration of – the ageing process, pandemic frustrations, and all the wonder that is human life.' Polly Stretton wrote 'his poems take us to the cosmos, to the countryside, to children growing up; this is a medley of communication tiered with aims, wants and emotion'
HOME
Of Home, Anna Saunders wrote 'Whether deploying form with a clever twist, or writing free verse, Derek Healy writes beautifully. Lyrically rich, vividly imagistic, poignant and moving, these poems stay with you long after their reading.'
Uncharted and Home both cost seven pounds in paperback and are available from Amazon, from www.aspect-design.net or direct from the poet himself at dch.derekhealy@gmail.com . A cheaper e-book version of each book is also available from Amazon.
Rona Laycock
THOUSAND-YEAR WHISPERS
Rona Laycock's first collection with Graffiti Books appeared in September of this year (2022). Thousand-Year Whispers is the result of two years spent wandering in the National Arboretum at Westonbirt, Gloucestershire during the Covid years 2020/21. Woven through the facts, myths and legends surrounding the trees are excerpts from a journal kept during those strange times. It is not a botanical reference book but something to dip into at leisure and I hope it will encourage the reader to do their own research into the natural world whilst enjoying a bit of 'forest bathing.'
Thousand-Year Whispers is available for ten pounds on Amazon and from www.aspect-design.net
Gill Garrett
WAYMARKS
Gill Garrett's Waymarks collection was published in December 2020. It is her first full length collection.
"A beautiful collection from a poet unafraid to navigate her way through the calm and the turbulent waters of history, family, loss and reclamation, curses and blessings. Gill has an ear for the tenderness of language and her poems touch the reader with poignancy and warmth." Sara-Jane Arbury
Waymarks is available direct from Gill at gillgarrettbooks@gmail.com at a cost of £7.00 plus £1.70 postage and packing, or from Graffiti Books via www.aspect-design.net
Gill Garrett’s second collection, The Photo I Didn’t Take, focuses on the small, seemingly insignificant aspects of lives, places and events that so often offer deeper insights into our everyday existence. With her we travel to destinations as diverse as wartime Reykjavik, an up-for-sale pub, abandoned allotments, the duty-free shop at Bristol Airport; amongst a host of others we encounter a seasonal worker, a church organist, a deceased grandmother, a graduate returning for a college reunion. All have their stories; these poems both tell and question them.
The Photo I Didn't Take is available direct from Gill at gillgarrettbooks@gmail.com at a cost of £8.00 plus £1.70 postage and packing, or from Graffiti Books via www.aspect-design.net
Susannah White
SUNCATCHER
Susannah White's Suncatcher appeared in 2021. It is her first volume of poems with Graffiti Books. Susannah says of the poems 'The light in my life arises from poetry, creativity, the sea and precious memories. Yet light shines most brightly when it is set against darkness, so this collection also includes poetry from the shadowlands of dreams which...can lead us towards transformation.
Suncatcher is available to buy from Graffiti Books via
www.aspect-design.net at £7.00 plus postage and packing.
Frances March
LOOKING OUT,
LOOKING IN
Looking Out, Looking In was published by Graffiti Books in March 2023. It is a beautifully crafted verse memoir covering Frances' and her family's lives from childhood to the present day. It is accompanied by a wide range of arresting colour photographs by her musician husband Geoff March. Plaudits have come from other poets, eg.
" ...showcases the author's ability to evoke place and time in wonderfully observed and crafted poems that never waste a word." (David Clarke)
" charming, light and sturdy...a heart-warming reminder to live and to love." (Roy McFarlane)
Looking Out, Looking In is available to buy from Graffiti Books via www.aspect-design.net
Aspect Design, based in Malvern, are a small, family run firm. We offer an affordable, high quality, print, design and book publishing service.
at £10.00 plus postage and packing. It is also available online from Amazon
Kim Taplin
EBB & FLOW
Kim Taplin's Ebb & Flow is Graffiti Books' most recent publication (May 2023). In it, poems about weeding the garden, wearing hi viz, trick-or-treating and the frustrations of motorway traffic are found alongside probing reflections on love, lifestyle and the quest for meaning. Kim's poetry, written in a range of styles from narrative free verse through sonnets, terza rima, roundels, minutes, tankas and more, wrestles with our experiences of loss and grief, challenging simplistic notions of faith and exploring the existential threat of climate change.
Ebb & Flow is available at £7.00 from Graffiti Books via www.aspect-design.net. It is also available from Amazon.
Iris Anne Lewis
Amber
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Amber is Iris’s debut collection. Ambitious in its scope and lyrical in tone, it takes us
travelling through time, exploring ancient history, stories and myths and leading the
reader to find the relevance of old ways to today’s human condition.
Reviews of Amber include:
"A visionary poet with a richly lyrical and transportative voice, Lewis takes us
travelling through time in her beautifully realised and vivid poems. Without
losing a sense of the real, this gifted poet enables her readers to experience
deepest history, myth and private emotional worlds. These are poems that are
wide-eyed with wonder, mesmerising and magical. This is poetry at its most
alchemical." (Anna Saunders)
"Iris Anne Lewis is a poet who holds us in her thrall. In Lewis's work, we time-
travel, plunge back deep into the past and are exposed to the alchemy of the
word. These are poems of fire and ice, of liminal spaces and ritual. A poet of
great scope and ambition." (Matthew M. C. Smith)
Amber is available at £8.00 from Graffiti Books via www.aspect-design.net. It is also available from Amazon.
Elizabeth Horrocks
Legends and Literature
This, Elizabeth’s debut collection, was published in May 2025, after a lifetime of successful poetry writing, finding success in magazines and competitions. We are very pleased to welcome her to the Graffiti stable.
The poems here cover myths and legend from Ancient Greece to Arthurian tales, with some more general forays into folklore and the supernatural. The literature segment has poems inspired by many authors, but especially Shakespeare. There is also space for some comic takes on well-known stories, such as those of Jane Austen and Agatha Christie.
Many are written as persona poems, that try to see the characters point of view,
They vary from free verse to sonnets via blank verse and other forms, although it must be said that sonnets predominate!
Of “Legends and Literature” the poet Mary Lister wrote “Elizabeth Horrocks brings wit, scholarship and wonderful fun to the myths and legends she weaves into poetry”
Robin Gilbert
Urgency of Snails
This is Robin’s third collection of poetry, the first to be published by Graffiti Books. It’s splendid to have him amongst the Graffiti Books poets at last.
The scenery and wildlife of the Wide Valley have occasioned many of the poems in the collection, all of which are in some way concerned with the natural world.
“The music of the local, the satisfaction of sound, a delight in nature and a wry humour … give Robin Gilbert’s poetry its endearing and particular grace” (Alison Brackenbury).
“In this generous collection, he directs his eye … towards the natural world, crafting verse of skill and wit” (Ross Cogan).
“A fine poet with an understanding of, and affinity for, the English countryside, he has the ability to evoke what he sees” (Angela France).