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Tess Jolly’s first full collection, Breakfast at the Origami Café, slides beneath emotional surfaces, the painted veneers we artfully create for ourselves, and enters the heart of darkness: loss, violence, trauma, recovery – delivered with a forensic eye for just the right amount of detail. This is art which is bold and yet vulnerable, precise in its use of language and yet passionately engaged, a book where shadows – both living and dead – are weighed, and found accountable, by an unflinching sun.
'By force of imagination, these exacting poems make for a sophisticated debut which reconfigures experiences of family history, violence, illness and loss into rites of passage, charm or prayer. With a highly original gift for language, Tess Jolly's work comes from the place where storytelling meets poetic revelation.' Rachael Boast www.bluediode.co.uk/product-page/breakfast-at-the-origami-caf%C3%A9-isbn-978-1-9164051-4-1 |
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Thus the Blue Hour Comes is a sequence of poems which explores the narrator's journey away from home into a disturbing psychological world of restriction and disorder. In a realm which could be house, forest or fairy tale, presided over by a menacing, unnamed presence, ordinary objects such as clocks, furniture and flowers become frightening, and childhood games are dangerous. Finally recognising the place for what it is, the traveller must decide if and how to return.
'The mysterious, almost unnerving, quality of Tess Jolly’s poetry carries a cold fire into recesses of the imagination – and when we dare look with her, we glimpse treasures gleaming in the dark. These are bold, spellbinding poems.' Peter Kenny www.indigodreams.co.uk/tess-jolly/4594104478 |
My first pamphlet was published by Eyewear in 2016
'It's a pleasure to see Tess Jolly's poems brought together. Her densely-imaged verse combines a child's perception of detail with an edge of fear, and elements of fairy tale with the surreal, verging on the Gothic. Everyday relationships become as richly textured as an illuminated manuscript.'
Anthony Mair
'It's a pleasure to see Tess Jolly's poems brought together. Her densely-imaged verse combines a child's perception of detail with an edge of fear, and elements of fairy tale with the surreal, verging on the Gothic. Everyday relationships become as richly textured as an illuminated manuscript.'
Anthony Mair
Poems published online
'Sweetmeats', 'My Darling Fixation', 'Flight' and 'Milk' in Molly Bloom
mollybloom23.weebly.com/tess-jolly.html
mollybloom23.weebly.com/tess-jolly.html
'An Angry Hatching of Closely Spaced Parallel Lines' in Tentacular
www.tentacularmag.com/issue-6-c/tess-jolly
www.tentacularmag.com/issue-6-c/tess-jolly
Awards, interviews and reviews
A review of Breakfast at the Origami Café in The High Window
thehighwindowpress.com/category/reviews/
in Tears in the Fence
tearsinthefence.com/?s=tess+jolly
and in London Grip
londongrip.co.uk/2021/04/london-grip-poetrytreview-tess-jolly/
thehighwindowpress.com/category/reviews/
in Tears in the Fence
tearsinthefence.com/?s=tess+jolly
and in London Grip
londongrip.co.uk/2021/04/london-grip-poetrytreview-tess-jolly/
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A interview with Peter Kenny on the theme of the uncanny in Planet Poetry Podcast
planetpoetry.buzzsprout.com/1414696/6671624-uncanny-unsettling-with-tess-jolly-and-krishan-coupland |
A review of Thus the Blue Hour Comes in Peter Kenny: Writer
peterkenny.co.uk/2018/03/05/between-beauty-and-terror/
peterkenny.co.uk/2018/03/05/between-beauty-and-terror/
A review of Thus the Blue Hour Comes in Sabotage Reviews
sabotagereviews.com/2018/02/20/thus-the-blue-hour-comes-by-tess-jolly/
sabotagereviews.com/2018/02/20/thus-the-blue-hour-comes-by-tess-jolly/
A review of Thus the Blue Hour Comes in The Poetry Book Society Bulletin
In 2016 I was chosen by Rachael Boast as the winner of the Anne Born Prize
poetrysociety.org.uk/news/winner-of-the-anne-born-prize-announced/
poetrysociety.org.uk/news/winner-of-the-anne-born-prize-announced/
In 2015 my poem 'Goldfields' was chosen by Kei Miller to be published in Poetry News. I was invited to read alongside Kei and other poets at the Queen's Gallery, London. The poem went on to win the Hamish Canham Prize for the best poem published in Poetry News that year.
poetrysociety.org.uk/news/tess-jolly-wins-the-2015-hamish-canham-prize/
poetrysociety.org.uk/news/tess-jolly-wins-the-2015-hamish-canham-prize/
