Flood

In Flood, Jessica Mookherjee inhabits several identities in her 'bone-framed coat'. With overarching themes of migration, otherness, sexual awakening, and maternal mental illness, we encounter the aftermath of catastrophe, of loss and being lost.
Here, 'time folds us into origami boats' – and the poems swell with the surging tides of youth and of becoming, of what we inherit and what we forge as our own path – and what happens when we jump into the depths and experience life in full-flow. Alive with wildlife and nightlife, mythmaking and bad romance, the everyday and the otherworldly, Flood is a prodigious debut collection from a truly distinctive and vital voice, now reissued in this new edition by Nine Arches Press.

Jessica Mookherjee is a British poet of Bengali heritage and grew up in Wales and London, and now lives in Kent. She has been published in many journals and anthologies, and was twice highly commended for Best Single Poem in the Forward Prizes in 2017 and 2021. Author of three previous collections from Nine Arches Press, her second collection, Tigress, was shortlisted for the Ledbury Prize in 2021. She has two pamphlets, Playlists and Desire Lines with Broken Sleep Books. Jessica has a background in biological socio-ecology and public mental health. She also runs workshops and mentors poets.