‘Cecilia Knapp is a great writer. I love her’ KAE TEMPEST
In her devastatingly powerful debut collection, Cecilia Knapp examines the experience of motherlessness and its lasting impact, as well as the lessons passed between generations of women.
These poems explore women’s complicated relationship with their bodies, with sex, and with shame as she traverses the violence of romantic love, but also employs humour and mischief, a wry reclaiming of power.
We hear stories of a challenging childhood in a seaside town, a girl growing up, getting out and reckoning with the guilt of being ‘one of these people now.’
The collection also offers a look at Knapp’s close relationship with her older brother, his struggles with addiction and, eventually, his death. With tenderness, she remembers him and unpacks the unique grief that comes after a suicide.
Peach Pig is a candid and unflinching look at loss, an attempt to find a language for it. It grapples with feelings of anxiety, insecurity and displaced anger; but it is also a collection full of dreams, hope and vibrant persistence, a willingness to question and to carry on.
In her devastatingly powerful debut collection, Cecilia Knapp examines the experience of motherlessness and its lasting impact, as well as the lessons passed between generations of women.
These poems explore women’s complicated relationship with their bodies, with sex, and with shame as she traverses the violence of romantic love, but also employs humour and mischief, a wry reclaiming of power.
We hear stories of a challenging childhood in a seaside town, a girl growing up, getting out and reckoning with the guilt of being ‘one of these people now.’
The collection also offers a look at Knapp’s close relationship with her older brother, his struggles with addiction and, eventually, his death. With tenderness, she remembers him and unpacks the unique grief that comes after a suicide.
Peach Pig is a candid and unflinching look at loss, an attempt to find a language for it. It grapples with feelings of anxiety, insecurity and displaced anger; but it is also a collection full of dreams, hope and vibrant persistence, a willingness to question and to carry on.
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Reviews
Love this book - the stunning first collection by Cecilia Knapp. So much to recognise and feel about girlhood, loss, shame, love - expressed with bags of elegance, generosity & power
A beautiful work . . . skilful use of humour and delicious grit . . . [a] unique exploration of womanhood . . . Peach Pig really does find the joy
The debut collection by a former young people's laureate for London is arrestingly frank in its exposure of everyday worries and profound melancholy . . . Knapp writes with a light touch even when her heart is heaviest: her mother died when she was seven and her alcoholic brother also died too young. The collection comes into its own in loving and painful poems about him . . . this tormented collection has a saving grace
Cecilia Knapp is a great writer. I love her
Cecilia Knapp is a rare, rare talent. The sort of writer you get excited to have found and then look forward to devouring more of their work