Everything Everyday: A Year of Empty Promises

by Hannah Lavery

Everything Everyday is a poetic journal of the year that charts winter through to autumn in a richly textured sequence of diary-poems, lyric fragments and a crown of sonnets.

Each month's entry weaves together mythic figures – Tahlequah the mourning orca, Brigid's mountain dance, Sister Icarus's fragile flight and Beira's shore vigils – with the unfolding chronicle of contemporary grief and protest. Readers move from January's frozen harbour and political flashpoints into spring's ritual planting of 'lemon-drop' seeds, summer's drum-driven rallies and smoky vigils, and autumn's oil-slick swans and ash-borne snowdrops. The collection's formal innovations mirror its thematic bracketed interjections pulse like heartbeats, dated stanzas resonate like journal entries, and the season-by-season structure creates a mythic ledger of solidarity and hope. Lavery's work becomes both witness and archive—where personal confession and public ritual converge in an unflinching testament to collective mourning, unbroken resilience, and the ember of promise that refuses to cool.

Each poem is an unflinching exploration of memory and identity in an era defined by both loss and possibility. Bold, uncompromising, and deeply resonant, Everything, Everyday invites you to confront the delicate art of living—and loving—in a world that is as beautiful as it is unpredictable.

144 pages, Mass Market Paperback

Expected publication July 7, 2026

About the author

Hannah Lavery (b. 1977) is a Scottish short story writer, poet, playwright and performer. Her poetry and prose has been published by Gutter Magazine, The Scotsman newspaper, 404 Ink, and others. In September 2021 she took on the role of Edinburgh Makar.