The Snow Globe

Jenny Pagdin’s powerful, sensitive and stark debut poetry collection details a first-hand experience of postpartum psychosis. Threaded through this book are extraordinary and courageous poems that illuminate, that settle and unsettle in equal measure – that move through illness and recovery, through snow flurry and sunshine, towards love.

Praise for The Snow Globe

‘Offering an unflinching account of postpartum psychosis, The Snow Globe is raw, painful yet light-filled as the poet steers towards clarity and healing. These poems have risen from a dark place and with the tender force of Pagdin’s pen, they make a crucial book.’ – Rebecca Goss

‘What do we base ourselves on when our body-mind disconnects from the world around us? Through destabilising metaphor and lucid imagery, Pagdin stunningly evokes the experience of postpartum psychosis, demonstrating the power of poetry to connect us, even when we feel at our most shameful. Like The Snow Globe of its title, Pagdin’s collection shapes a fragile, shifting, startling environment into which these poems compel us. Throughout, the writing sparkles. Love recurs as a base to reconnect with, to fly from, to home to. These are remarkable, dignified, ‘full-ripe’ poems that breath-takingly reveal experience rarely discussed. A vital book.’ – Heidi Williamson.

‘From threads of sorrow, deep love and the wildness of new motherhood, Jenny Pagdin's poems weave such fine cloth. Alive to the rawness of being, these carefully-crafted poems lead us through a beautiful and important exploration of post-partum psychosis. Unpicking the seams of the poet's own experience with bare honesty and tenderness, they move from the white heat of bewilderment towards healing and luminosity.‘ – Liz Berry