Tiny Bright Thorns

by Jen Feroze

Genres: Poetry

34 pages, Paperback

Published July 1, 2024

About the author

Jen has been in love with language for as long as she can remember. She worked as an editor of children's books in London for ten years, authoring and editing titles on as diverse a range of subjects as the politics of creating a micronation and the rewriting of classic fairytales, to folk-dancing meerkats and Justin Bieber. She's a former Foyle Young Poet of the Year, and published her debut collection in 2020. Find more of her poetry on instagram @the_colourofhope.

Reviews

[Ewan Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 22 remarkable poems, Jen Feroze shares her initiation into the ancient mysteries of motherhood; “These first weeks are uncharted and you are adrift / in seas the same colour and temperature as tears.” The collection whirls us through these unknown waters with Feroze - exhausted, bewildered, delirious with joy – trying to find a semblance of internal balance when everything around her is in chaos; “I try to hold on / to small pieces of myself / amid all this love.” Love is everywhere, even transforming the post-labour ward; “Two cubicles over is lush / with sudden, sodden jungle; / a tenderness of soft primate hoots.” The forces that have rushed into her life are overwhelming; “you brought with you a gush of love / so ferociously pure it’s a wonder / it didn’t burn that clean white room to the ground.” Everything has changed. Feroze meets up with an old friend and they struggle to re-establish their relationship which used to be as easy as breathing; “We both stare / with something / like bemusement / at my children.” There’s a sense of Feroze’s dissatisfaction with the world of adulting. She decides not to slip into the bed of her almost-asleep daughter; “Instead, I creep backwards out of the room. / Instead I drink wine with my husband. / Instead I turn my old raindrop face to the TV, / dishes left in the sink.” It feels like an opportunity lost, for Feroze recognizes that these children of hers have a very different perception of reality. At another bedtime, she asks her daughter what she wants to be and the answer comes, “A fox”. This time, instead of suggesting the sensible career alternative of becoming a doctor, perhaps, or a plumber, Feroze turns out the lights; “we careen around her bedroom, / leaving pawmarks like poems or prayers in a carpet of snow.” This is the real Feroze, refusing the well-trodden path or the comfortably familiar phrase. Her language is consistently unexpected and vivid. I kept thinking of the heroine in the fairy tale who spins straw into gold. Feroze transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary. The first, fat flakes of snow in the night are an opportunity to tell her baby son, “Look how the sky falling / doesn’t always mean disaster.” On the night the whales came, “stillness / dripped thickly from her oars like mercury.” Feroze sits on the floor as her daughter’s small hands trace heart shapes and magic spells on her back; “eventually she gives in to sleep, / launching dreams at the ceiling like dauntless porcelain birds.” Tiny Bright Thorns is so exciting to read; a wild journey round the frontiers of identity. Such humour. So much relish for life. Highly recommended. (And I can’t wait for the poems that result from Feroze’s children turning teenager.)

[Karan Chambers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tiny Bright Thorns is a tender, heartbreaking exploration of early motherhood during unprecedented times. Feroze weaves magic into the madness of matrescence and creates a vivid tapestry of love, loneliness, and loss of the self. I can’t recommend this book enough, I have cried so many times over the beautiful, evocative poems contained in this stunning pamphlet.

[Kristiana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jen’s poetry is quite simply brilliant, tender and beautiful. It was such a joy to read old favourites in this pamphlet as well as new poems. A moving study of personhood entwined with motherhood.

[Jayant Kashyap · Rating 5 out of 5]

This, I think, is why poetry is of extreme importance—you love someone, you celebrate them; you have a child, you celebrate that child!