‘This is brave and blazing work, full of variety and interest. Jennifer Wong has put together an important feminist anthology for a new generation.’ – Clare Pollard, Poet and author of The Modern Fairies

Book blurb

What does it mean to be a woman?

To live as a woman is so often a political act. This powerful anthology maps the journeys of women: their joys and challenges, and the defining moments that shape them.

From girlhood to ageing, from love to loss, from ambition to identity, these distinctive writers speak honestly to what it means to be heard in our own voices, on our own terms.

Curated by acclaimed poet and critic Jennifer Wong, ‘Woman, Mapped‘ reflects the breadth of lived experience across identities, cultures, and generation.

With a foreword by Hollie McNish

My thoughts

This is a wonderful anthology of modern women poets. It is full of powerful, interesting, heart rending, joyful and witty offerings. I can’t say that I loved every poem but each of these poets wrote something that I enjoyed, connected to or found inspiring.

Amy Acre exploring what it is, means to be a girl, woman and that it is still sometimes functions as an insult. In See Also by taking variations on Dad and Mum this is sharply, playfully, whip smartly demonstrated. I particularly liked Sweet World of Rain and Sadness a young woman suffers consequences for killing a wolf, a protected species, who had attempted to eat her.

Katy Mack’s poems were unsettling, surreal and I found myself reading them more than once. With some humour we read And so, I started to dress up as a shark but there are definite changes in tone which come into other poems as well and leave you feeling the hairs on the back of your neck stand up!

Katrina Naomi tells us that ‘imagination is one of the best parts of us’ and it certainly shines in Naomi’s work which is a delightful set of poems as she explores what makes us human with (tongue in cheek?) humour and a tenderness that permeates throughout and in The Table My Father Made these elements are clear.

Aoife Lyall’s articulates the complexity of creative constraints that women writers, poets face and how the ‘trigonometry’ of families, finances, children must be navigated or faced with courage beautifully imagined in Cello.

Isle Pedler continues the theme that runs through this anthology the meaning of creative life and journey of women. Sometimes challenges sympathetically what that looks like within the complexity of womanhood through youth, ageing and disillusionment as we read in ‘It takes a lifetime to seal the heart’ when, through the metaphor of a beehive, we can know sisterhood.

Jade Mutyora in ‘Dream Job’ we see that little has changed when it comes to a level playing field for women. Is it shocking? Yes, are we shocked? well maybe though I’m not sure I have the level of expectation that’s needed just a small glimmer of hope that takes a lot to hold onto. Mutyora resonates that hope in her dreams of the closing lines and I’m glad because to loose hope is unthinkable.

Maria Jastrzębsk with purpose, value and courage ‘speaks up from the queer community’.

“In the toilets the attendant pushes me ‘Get out! Get out! This is for ladies, ladies only.’ Peering at me, realising her mistake she grabs me again and pulls me close, not fierce anymore, ‘Sorry, I sorry, sorry.’ In her arms I crease like a pillow.”

from Mister! by Maria Jastrzębska

Janette Ayachi brings the working class to the fore its spirit encompassed within the matriarch of ‘The Drinkers’ Dive’. Then goes on to capture complex emotions through the dual identity of mother and daughter in ‘The Gift’.

Natalie Linh Bolderston opens a new world, language allowing us to see that other (all) cultures have a depth and understanding of what womanhood means in her look at the myths and oral history of ‘matrilineal wisdom’.

There are three essays Sisterhood by Jessie Williams, ‘Wrong-Walking Women: ‘Women’s Spaces’ and the Dyke Writer by Teddy Webb and ‘Woman Poet Demolition Land’ by Claire Harnett-Mann. I’m not going to say much here except that these three works were, for me, the most telling and powerful. Williams and Harnett-Mann bookend the anthology shedding light on the themes encompassed within. Teddy Webb’s essay is, for me, outstanding.

As a reader different pieces will speak more strongly than others to us and this is the joy of an anthology. We read things that we may not have happened upon otherwise and find that they resonate with us and we want to explore that writer’s work further. For me Woman, Mapped also shows in various ways the connectivity between all women, the shared experiences, the other experiences, the need to have a dialogue between us and how important it is to find our space. The women contributing have opened their hearts and minds honestly with vulnerability in order to be seen, for all women to be seen and that makes this anthology important because these things have to be told over and over until they are not needed and even then they must be kept safe so it is not forgotten.

#20BOS26

Last year Cathy @746books passed on the challenge hosting duties to Annabel at AnnaBookBel and Emma at Words and Peace. 

This year Annabel is hosting alone, with brand new graphics and a new hashtag #20BOS26 so thanks to her for taking this on. I’m sure it will be another great summer (or winter for those ‘down under’) of reading.

Thanks

Many thanks to Isabelle Kenyon at Fly on the Wall Press for the invitation to read Woman, Mapped and for providing an ARC copy of Woman, Mapped for the purposes of reading and sharing my thoughts on it.

The Rebecca Swift Foundation

REBECCA SWIFT SPEAKING AT THE LITERARY CONSULTANCY’S WHAT’S YOUR STORY? CONFERENCE IN 2016. PHOTOGRAPH: ELIXABETE LÓPEZ/TLC

The Rebecca Swift Foundation is the only charity in the UK working at the intersection of craft, creativity, and wellbeing for women poets, with a co-creative programme powered by women poets, for women poets. It is the home of the Women Poets’ Network, a thriving community of women poets at all stages of their career. Find out more here

For more information and to read my thoughts on Rebecca Swift’s A Suitable Love Object

Information

Published: Fly On The Wall Press | ISBN: 9781915789587 | RRP: £12.99 | Pub date: 07/07/2026 | 204 pp

Buy: Fly on the Wall Press | Waterstones | Your local library

Editor: Jennifer Wong

Editor: Jennifer Wong is a poet, editor and creative writing tutor. Born and raised in Hong Kong, she now lives in the UK. She studied in Oxford and took a creative writing MA at University of East Anglia. She also earned a creative writing PhD from Oxford Brookes University.

Jennifer Wong – Poet and writer | Poetry Foundation | Linktree | On Threads

Her publications include

Letters Home (Nine Arches), time difference (Verve), and Diary of a Miu Miu Salesgirl (bitter melon). She has co- edited Where Else: An International Hong Kong Poetry Anthology (Verve) and State of Play: Poets of East and Southeast Asian Heritage in Conversation (Outspoken) Goldfish (Chameleon Press) and Summer Cicadas (Chameleon Press). Light Year, her next collection, is forthcoming from Nine Arches Press.

Essay Contributors

Claire Harnett-Mann | Teddy Webb | Jessie Williams

Poetry Contributors

Ilse Pedler | Maria Jastrzębska | Aoife Lyell | Amy Acre | Janette Ayachi | Katy Mack | Katrina Naomi | Jade Mutyora | Natalie Linh Bolderston