ISBN: 978-1-915108-44-9
Published 2 November 2026
94 pages
Amy Jo Philip’s energetic third collection – the first under her chosen name – is fuelled by a determination to embrace both the pain and joy of change. In poems at once angrily serious and seriously playful, she addresses the complex experience of gender transition in a time of political precariousness. Blending tradition and innovation, Philip tackles the struggles of faith and identity, justice, mortality and loss without losing sight of the love that underpins everything.
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Everything is Running Out at Once:
The breathable air. The unjaded news.
My Satin Care shaving gel. My rosemary oil
shampoo and conditioner. The soil
that will sustain a healthy yield. The snooze
time on my sleep-tracker app.
My sunscreen and the summer sun.
My Inky List redness relief serum.
The shortened lease on my current flat.
My bank account. My patience
with the mockers, the haters and the leakage
from their meetings, minds and mouths.
The space for us to live as uncowed
members of society. The room for breakage
without brokenness. My own degree of agency.
Our space to breathe. Our space to be.
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“A rich, humane collection, full of wit, play, pain and, especially, joy: joy in the face of, and gained through, loss and longing (‘our dearest gain was loss’), and joy in languages and transformation, a joy in confounding. It’s braw, babes.” —Peter Mackay
“A book of play and wonder, tracking the hope and heartbreak of change through language games, wicked jokes, lyric flights and bitter dreams. In these poems I found a gentle comradeship, the gift that is one peculiar vision of life reaching out to another and naming with clarity what is common.” —Harry Josephine Giles
