Tiny Bright Thorns

Jen Feroze’s debut pamphlet Tiny Bright Thorns charts the magic and madness of early motherhood. Shot through with sea and sky, wonder and terror, these unflinching poems explore themes of love, doubt, growth, loneliness and the sudden shift of identity that comes with the birth of a child.

Tiny Bright Thorns begins rooted in the domestic, but slinks out among forests of foxes, flames a triumphant sunrise on a beach, has an argument with a Salvador Dali painting and finds whales swimming among the stars.

Praise for 'Tiny Bright Thorns'

"Tiny Bright Thorns" is a love-song to the tender, fierce and ‘tar-thick’ days and nights of early motherhood, the ‘feathered cries of the new’. Rich in startling imagery, open-hearted and often movingly truthful, these poems shine - a ‘beacon’ passed from ‘mother to mother to mother’. How I wish I had read them as a new mother myself navigating those perilous, unmoored early weeks. Jen Feroze writes with grace and humanity of the ‘herbaceous bite/ of exquisite and terrifying love’ in all its forms and the power of imagination to connect us all." - Sarah Westcott

"Playful, moving, tender and true; this pamphlet is a magical yet honest reflection on the wonder of motherhood. Nature, art and folklore run through these poems so deftly they continue to sing long after they're put down. A joy." - Maria Ferguson

"Dark yet tender and full of wonder, in these lyrical poems motherhood is an ocean as dangerous as it is beautiful. Feroze sculpts sleepless nights to show us each sharp shining star. A startling, stunning debut. " - Angela Readman

"Feroze turns a poet’s sharp eye on motherhood in this collection and illuminates both its astonishing tenderness and its isolation. Fascinating poems about new motherhood under lockdown, adjustment to friendships with the childfree, an insight into the astonishment of finding yourself in that place where ‘our own little landscape is a miniature aviary’. I loved it." - Carole Bromley

"In Tiny Bright Thorns by Jen Feroze, the poems talk of loving. And though these poems are about motherhood; they are equally about the self and being loved and loving. There is a consuming fullness to these poems. They are as exquisite as they are vast. Feroze writes in a way which is inclusive to all, these poems are not singular in their approach to one subject, rather they allow the reader to relate them to their own lives. I loved this book." - Wendy Allen

Jen Feroze

Jen Feroze lives by the sea in Essex with her husband and two young children. A former Foyle Young Poet, her work has appeared in publications including Under the Radar, Butcher's Dog, Magma, Poetry Wales, Spelt, One Hand Clapping and The Alchemy Spoon. She has guest edited anthologies for Black Bough Poetry and The Mum Poem Press, and she placed second in the 2022/2023 Magma Editors' Prize. Her debut pamphlet 'Tiny Bright Thorns' is publishing in 2024 with Nine Pens. Jen loves cold water swimming, chunky knitwear, amaretto sours and cheese you can eat with a spoon. Find her on the artist formerly known as Twitter @jenlareine and on Instagram @the_colourofhope.