I am excited to announce that Elisabeth Horan's brave collection battling postpartum depression is now on pre-order via the Fly on the Wall shop!

Elisabeth has been speaking to Twist in Time about the influence of Sylvia Plath's poetry on her work and the publisher has kindly allowed us to see a sneak peek of the creative study...

"Sylvia Plath. Yes. Many people connect with Plath - her words are so fearless, so tragic, so knowing - she was not afraid to say the horrid things.

I have always respected her in that - like, she had the courage to say in her poems, the dark monster which was in her heart -

to make the poems ugly and beautiful. To make suicide ugly and beautiful. And I follow her - and I try to make the darkness I hold readable to you all - to show you the monster in me - I think Sylvia's monster was the Bi-Polar and the PMDD - I think it screamed and howled at her every month - with her cycle - the rage would bubble up along with genius - and she would write, and be fire, and wrath and phoenix, and then crash - the guilt of mothering, the shame of loss, the anger at men - at the world.

So, I feel these things - Sylvia came to me and we had a talk. I don't presume to get it 100%, but I can empathize and guess - from my own massive and crushing postpartum depression, my own PMDD cycles - which cause the genius flurry of brilliant poems and fire - followed by suicidal crash, shame, guilt, self hate, and immense rage and anger at myself and the world.

I hope you can see in my work here - this duality - can one be a brilliant poet and a decent mum...? Can one forgive oneself for doing such harm, and survive, not succumb to the grave, but suck up the gut-eating guilt and move on? For one's children? Or did she have no say. The demons,,, to powerful, dragged her away. and she was not present at the time.

I hold on. But it is bleak at times. I'll never forgive myself for the words I said to my children in my darkest hours. My only slight consolation, is that I did not die, and they get to see their mother's face in the morning, even if the terrible monster still exists inside - Mommy is here little ones,,, and she is still alive. <3

Much love to you all. and thank you always for opening your hearts to me and my humble, broken-glass words."

Make sure you grab a copy of the talent that is Elisabeth Horan - her debut chapbook!

#ChapbookSeries #FlyontheWallPoets