Description
Makeover is a book dripping with nostalgia, cigarette ash and sour cream dip. Lit by too-close TV screens and too-bright calorie counters, Bolger’s poems explore growing up, differing bodies and societal expectations.
Writing in praise of mums, nans and sisterhood, this is a work bursting with strength, anger, love and, ultimately, hope. In a celebration of girls shaped by swimming baths and Working Men’s Clubs, friendship and family, Makeover contends with what we inherit and what we ought to pass on.
Praise for Makeover
‘Laurie Bolger’s writing is a best friend, a memory, a picnic, a hug and a punch. “I want to live without weighing things” is maybe my favourite line of poetry this year, and definitely my new life motto. Stunning.’ – Hollie McNish
‘Intimate, warm, and with teeth clenching wit, Bolger turns the domestic into an epic. Her leaps of surreality are breathtaking, unexpected and painful. Moving, tender and always curious Makeover is a book that will hold your hand in the supermarket.’ – Joelle Taylor
‘This heartwarming and delicious hymn to love & sisterhood & sticky toffee pudding will remind you good things are still happening out there.’ – Jacqueline Saphra
“Laurie Bolger balances the intimacy and warmth of childhood memory with a heart-wrenching exploration of womanhood.” – Rebecca Morely, Poetry Book Society
‘This is a confection of a collection – easy to read in one delicious gulp and then return to again and again…’ – Cathi Rae, Everybody’s Reviewing
‘Makeover by Laurie Bolger is a sizzling, dissolving snapshot. It’s a sticky but persistent moment in time.‘ – Kayleigh Jayshree, Ink Sweat and Tears
‘This pamphlet is a celebration of womanhood – of coming of age in an urban environment, of what it means to be a woman […] Bolger is a delightfully fresh and original voice.’ – Julia Webb, Under the Radar (Issue 33)
‘Makeover is a vivacious, capacious and funny exploration of rites of passage and pressures on women… If I had to choose a favourite poem among all the delicious, chatty, rangy, looseness of the collection, it would be ‘Dandelion’… It is simple, forthright, and perfect.’ – Tamsin Hopkins, The Alchemy Spoon
