Small Moon Curve

Small Moon Curve by Roz Goddard is an intimate poetry memoir exploring what it means to ease open to the restorative powers of love, faith and beauty following diagnosis and treatment for breast cancer. In this compelling, tender and deeply moving testimony, the narrator discovers a surprising and powerful affinity with Tess of the D'Urbervilles – as spiritual companion and guide through the challenging currents of illness, trauma and transformation.
This collection considers the stories we inherit, those we tell ourselves – and power of stories to rescue and renew us in a moment where "the world outside, the coming dawn, can only be reached by crossing a terrible sea". From a Buddhist retreat, to the nighttime depths of a maternity suite and the dark waters of a South Wales reservoir, Goddard's beautiful and sensitive poems study what it means to step into the wild river of ourselves – and feel alive. Here, poetry is way to hold and examine the things we are fearful of, and to find compassion and resolve in order to make peace with our past and live fully in our present.

Roz Goddard is a poet and teacher. Her latest poetry collection, Lost City, was published in 2020, by The Emma Press. Previous short collections have been published by Nine Arches Press and Flarestack Poets. She was a finalist for the Moth Poetry Prize in 2022 and works as a poetry mentor for The Poetry Society. Her forthcoming collection, Small Moon Curve, will be published in 2024 by Nine Arches Press. She is currently training for ordination in the Triratna Buddhist Order. She is a former poet laureate of Birmingham.