And I Will Make of You a Vowel Sound

Winner of the 2023 Aryamati Pamphlet Prize

In her second chapbook, And I Will Make of You a Vowel Sound, Morag Anderson places centre stage an unlikely cast of neglected, exploited, and unsung characters. These poems uncover many of the contradictions of life lived in the female body and bear witness to highly personal stories. Confident and assured of voice, she navigates womanhood and its attendant desires and abuses, permitting the reader to embrace the power and vulnerability encased in the female form. Anderson’s delicate choice of words ’unlace restraint’ and take us to the limits of the female body’s potential.

＂Delicate and furious, Anderson’s second collection is a haunting act of worship, of rebellion, and story. Glorious.＂ - Joelle Taylor, Poet and Playwright

＂Whether considering landscape, a chapter in history, childbirth, child loss, ’I am living by the tick of a stopped clock’, reimagining the lives of three women important in Robert Burns’s life or relishing the longing in a sense of home, ’In the bittersweet lull/between two days, /open your mouth/to salted air - //and I will make of you a vowel sound.’ these are poems of delicacy and import. This is a confident, assured voice able to face grief ’Loss - a thorn that cannot be drawn/by clenched teeth..’ yet still be wry about loss and difference, ’...me, the rusted iron barb/of a neglected fence, /you, the snagged fur/of a mountain hare.’＂ - Dr Maura Dooley