Author Description

UK based neurodivergent writer Jane Ayres re-discovered poetry studying for a part-time Creative Writing MA at the University of Kent, which she completed in 2019 at the age of 57. She is fascinated by hybrid poetry/prose experimental forms and has work in publications including Confluence, Postscript, Dissonance, Lighthouse, Streetcake, The North, Crow & Cross Keys, Kissing Dynamite, ubu, (mac)ro(mic), Sledgehammer, Punk Noir Magazine, Selcouth Station, Crow of Minerva, Acropolis and The Forge. She was longlisted for the 2020 Rebecca Swift Foundation Women Poets' Prize. In 2021, her poem Neurodivergent Cake Dream was nominated for Best of the Net by Streetcake and she was shortlisted for the 2021 Aesthetica Creative Writing Award. Introduction Putting together this collection, I was gobsmacked to discover how my anxieties about hunger, appetite, food, eating (in various forms) popped up (or stubbornly insinuated itself) in my work, even when I thought I was writing about my hysterectomy / female ageing / relationships / loss / childhood memories. That's what I love about poetry - themes hiding and manifesting unconsciously, creating emotional connections, revealing things that were always there, you just didn't see them. I'm fascinated by the freedom of experimental writing and hybrid forms, the way words sound and look on the page, playing with juxtapositions. I used to compose music and for me writing poetry is like writing music. I am naturally drawn to the beauty of dissonance - both smooth or jagged - so perhaps this reflects my dyspraxic brain. I've always had a difficult relationship with food, which feeds (ha!) into every aspect of my life. Writing helps me process and explore my dissonant thoughts, which lend themselves to experimental forms. I'm grateful I continue to be hungry for words.