Books by Carolyn Jess-Cooke

We Have To Leave The Earth, Carolyn Jess-Cooke's third book of poems, deftly interweaves the personal and the political. Climate change is confronted in a portrait of the Arctic with its 'wolf winters'. The House of Rest, is a history in 9 poems of Josephine Butler a pioneering feminist activist. There are also tender poems about family.

She thought her life was over, but it hadn't even started. . .When Margot Delacroix dies at forty years old, she is sent back to earth as a guardian angel - to herself. Renamed Ruth, she is forced by divine mandate to re-experience and record her biggest mistakes and fiercest regrets from the beginning of her life to her untimely death.Forced from the moment of her birth to witness the cogs of fate and the stuttering engine of free will, Ruth sets out to change the course of her life, and, ultimately, to prevent her premature death. When she realises that the reasons behind her teenage son's descent into drugs and murder lay within her own actions as Margot, she makes a pact with a demon - she will give up her place in Heaven in exchange for the opportunity to save her son from his fate. But the changes she makes result in consequences no one could expect. . .

A much-needed exploration of motherhood as both political space and a complex personal experience, this book''s skewering literary portraits of contemporary motherhood contend with the tender and torturous issues raised when a woman dares to do both. Contributors include Carol Ann Duffy, Sharon Olds and Hollie McNish.