Threat

The poems in Threat, Julia Webb's second collection, train their eagle-eyes on life at the margins, and on family, love, loss, belonging and not belonging. They are not afraid to visit the uncomfortable places where true humanity resides. Threat is an examination of self from multiple perspectives. Its narratives of both past and present tread a fine line between fantasy and reality – these are the lives we have led, the lives we could have led, or the lives we are leading still. Forensically detailed and disturbing, the dark and sometimes brutal undertow of small-town existence seeps to the surface of these unsettling poems.

Julia Webb is a neurodivergent writer and artist from a working-class background. She has three poetry collections with Nine Arches Press: Bird Sisters (2016), Threat (2019) and The Telling (2022). She has had two poems highly commended in the Forward Prize. Julia has taught creative writing for organisations such as Lapidus, MIND, Norfolk County Council, and The SAW Trust. In 2024 she was commissioned by The National Centre for writing and Living wage Foundation to write a poem for Living Wage Week. She is steering editor for Lighthouse – a journal for new writers. Julia lives in Norwich.