Following on from her 2016 debut pamphlet collection Heart on the Water, Mary McCollum’s first major collection living by the law of light presents 52 wistfully delicate poems, whose themes of memory, love, loss and fellowship echo our intimate bond with nature; simultaneously illustrating the everyday confusions of life, and exploring the blind blizzards of longing.

This witty (‘if you were bamboo/i might turn into a panda, and eat you’), playful (‘i just wanted a quickie/but now a quarrel’s broken out’) and incisive (‘the beach is a great leveller’) collection of poems reveals the acutely scrutinized observations of a significant poetic talent.

Mary McCollum is from Belfast and now lives in Hull. She has a Creative Writing MA from Hull University and is a member of Mutiny Writers and of the Rural Yorkshire Stanza group.

Her poetry has been published in a range of poetry magazines, including The Moth, Strix, More Points on the Compass, About Larkin, Turbulence, Roundyhouse, The English Chicago Review, South and the Amnesty International anthology Small Candles.

living by the law of light has been produced in this signed and numbered, Limited Edition of just 125 copies. A must-have addition to anyone’s collection of contemporary poetry.