A unique anthology of poems by mothers, fathers, sons and daughters. Divided into sections (mother to daughter, son to father, father to daughter etc), the book covers the whole range of emotions that exist within a family: from the joy and pain of bearing and bringing up children to the love or anger felt towards a parent There are poems from down the centuries and across the world: Ben Jonson on the death of his son, Lord Byron as a teenage father, Sylvia Plath on her baby daughter, Sharon Olds explaining reproduction to her seven year old son, Robert Lowell on bringing home the body of his father, and so on.
Melanie Hart read English at Oxford. She is now a psychoanalyst, and lives in London, SW4.
James Loader also read English at Oxford. For many years he was Head of English at St Olave's Grammar School, Orpington. He lives in Orpington. Kent.