'Car Office'
Composed and collated during the national lockdowns, Car Office is a collection of wry observations of the world as it appeared from her Nissan Micra. Filled with humour and warmth, it is a mirror held up to the world at one of its starkest and oddest moments; within its pages resides the comedy, history and tragedy of everyday life during an international pandemic.
Written Off Publishing are a micro publisher with ethics. Specialising in publishing northern, working class poets, they seek to uplift neurodiverse and traditionally marginalised writers.
Both relatable and thought-provoking, it is a collection to sit and reminisce with, to remember a time when we all felt a little cut off from society.
“Poetry is often about compression. These poems were compressed in their creation by the strict rules of a national lockdown, a sacrifice made by a loved one, and the tight confines of a Nissan Micra… Spotting magical in the mundane.”
– Dave Wigmore, Poet and Author
"Car Office is a wry, intelligent observation of life on an English housing estate by a poet held captive in her car by the pandemic. Something magical happens when the world is distilled to the view through a car windshield, in the same way something magical happens when words are distilled into poetry. Emma Conally-Barklem has used the pressure of the pandemic to create poems which capture humanity and kinship without the saccharine narration that is so easy to fall into when writing about pandemic experiences. These poems are rich, well-crafted and tuned into the working-class experience. A collection to revisit."
– Wendy Pratt, author of The Ghost Lake deemed 'remarkable' by The Guardian