Laura Varnam Boeken

In 2023, Nine Arches Press launched their nationwide Primers scheme for a seventh time, in search of exciting new voices in poetry, with Katie Hale as selecting editor. After reading through hundreds of anonymous entries, and narrowing down the choices from longlist to shortlist, three poets emerged as clear choices: Jade Cuttle, Antonia Taylor and Laura Varnam. Primers Volume Seven now brings together a showcase from three distinctive poets, exploring everything from mudlarking and making a 'mossary', to the borderlands of conflicts and a bold retelling of an Old English epic. Through lively engagement with language, deep connection to place and time, and the unearthing the stories of myth, history and peoples, these revealing poems offer an insightful collection of new work from some of poetry's most talented emerging voices.

This book places us at the heart of medieval religious life, standing inside the church with the medieval laity in order to ask what it meant to them and why. Drawing on a wide range of theoretical and interdisciplinary approaches, it examines the interplay of vernacular literature, ritual and material culture at the centre of parish life. -- .