Rebuilding a Number 39 - Marilyn Ricci

Marilyn Ricci was born in Leicestershire to parents who came from South Wales and the North East of England. She left home at seventeen, married, had a daughter and worked for the Open University for many years, returning to Leicester in 2002. She has been writing poetry seriously (and frivolously) for about ten years. Her work has won prizes and appeared in anthologies and many poetry journals. This is her first pamphlet collection. Many of the poems offer startlingly emotive vignettes of a childhood in post-war England, where coal fires and cigarette smoke represented not damage and decadence but comfort and reassurance. This is 'every penny slaved for' territory; it is the source of misery and unexpected miracles.