Dirty Laundry

Deborah Alma's debut poetry collection Dirty Laundry is raucous, daring and honest, drawing contemporary women's lives and those of our foremothers into the spotlight. It voices bold, feminist songs of praise: of persistence, survival, adventures of sexual rediscovery, each reclaiming the space to speak its mind and be heard and seen. A perfect remedy for the heartsick and weary, Alma's intimate and particular poems are resolute enchantments, a form of robust magic. The collection brims with poems which are unafraid of airing secrets, desires and untold stories. From growing up mixed-race and learning to survive as a woman in the world, to tales of the countryside and themes of escape and finding joy, this book of poems is as vivid as it is frank and fearless. There'll be no need for any tears, it'll all come out in the wash...

Deborah Alma is a poet, editor and teacher. She was the Emergency Poet offering poetry on prescription from her vintage ambulance. She co-founded the world's first walk-in Poetry Pharmacy in Shropshire with her partner, the poet James Sheard, in 2019. A mix of the therapeutic and the theatrical, Deborah offers consultations and prescribes poems as cures. She is editor of Emergency Poet: an anti-stress poetry anthology, #MeToo rallying against sexual harassment: a women's poetry anthology, Ten Poems of Happiness and co-edited These Are the Hands-Poems from the Heart of the NHS with Dr Katie Amiel. Her first full collection Dirty Laundry is published by Nine Arches Press.