The winner of this year’s Aberystwyth poetry festival competition has had their second full poetry collection published.
Bracing is Simone Mansell Broome’s ninth book, and is published by Conrad Press. It is available from Simone directly at www.simonemansellbroome.com, through the Welsh Books Council and on Amazon.
The cover of the book is based on an original illustration by Simone’s artist friend Cerys Susannah Rees.
“In the new year I will be doing a whole series of readings and talks about the book,” Simone said.
Bracing is a full collection of poems, mostly about contemporary life, experienced richly, intensely, unsentimentally and with humour. The writing is humane and accessible, wearing its intelligence lightly.
There is something for everyone in Bracing, even for those who were put off poetry at school.
This is a mature, well-rounded piece of work.
The subject matter ranges across modern life and beyond – childhood, parenthood, love, lust, loss, shopping, animals (and our connection to them), climate change, the complexities of the human heart and of relationships, spirituality, food, suffragettes, the status of women, homesickness, grief, illness, ageing, dementia, fear, the joy in small things.
All the poems are underpinned by a keen eye, a sharp wit and a total absence of self-pity. Simone is a safe pair of hands, writing in an unshowy style, a poet who manages to be heartfelt, humorous and accomplished.
Simone has written nine books, including one short e-pamphlet of performance-style poems.
She majors in modern, unpretentious, accessible poetry, often threaded with a quietly understated wit, but has also written children’s fiction and prose for the grown-ups.
She’s widely published in magazines, ezines and anthologies, and has performed her work in pubs, galleries, theatres, at festivals, on the radio and on internet TV.
Simone has written commissioned poems for ITV and for exhibitions and theatre pieces.
She is currently working on another collection, a second memoir and some short stories.