Everything Everyday
A Year of Empty Promises
Published on 7. May 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
144 pages
978-1-84697-737-4 (ISBN)
Description
Everything Everyday is a poetic journal of the year that charts winter through to autumn in a richly textured sequence of diary-poems, lyric fragments and a crown of sonnets.
Each month's entry weaves together mythic figures - Tahlequah the mourning orca, Brigid's mountain dance, Sister Icarus's fragile flight and Beira's shore vigils - with the unfolding chronicle of contemporary grief and protest. Readers move from January's frozen harbour and political flashpoints into spring's ritual planting of 'lemon-drop' seeds, summer's drum-driven rallies and smoky vigils, and autumn's oil-slick swans and ash-borne snowdrops. The collection's formal innovations mirror its thematic urgency: bracketed interjections pulse like heartbeats, dated stanzas resonate like journal entries, and the season-by-season structure creates a mythic ledger of solidarity and hope. Lavery's work becomes both witness and archive-where personal confession and public ritual converge in an unflinching testament to collective mourning, unbroken resilience, and the ember of promise that refuses to cool.
Each poem is an unflinching exploration of memory and identity in an era defined by both loss and possibility. Bold, uncompromising, and deeply resonant, Everything, Everyday invites you to confront the delicate art of living-and loving-in a world that is as beautiful as it is unpredictable.
Each month's entry weaves together mythic figures - Tahlequah the mourning orca, Brigid's mountain dance, Sister Icarus's fragile flight and Beira's shore vigils - with the unfolding chronicle of contemporary grief and protest. Readers move from January's frozen harbour and political flashpoints into spring's ritual planting of 'lemon-drop' seeds, summer's drum-driven rallies and smoky vigils, and autumn's oil-slick swans and ash-borne snowdrops. The collection's formal innovations mirror its thematic urgency: bracketed interjections pulse like heartbeats, dated stanzas resonate like journal entries, and the season-by-season structure creates a mythic ledger of solidarity and hope. Lavery's work becomes both witness and archive-where personal confession and public ritual converge in an unflinching testament to collective mourning, unbroken resilience, and the ember of promise that refuses to cool.
Each poem is an unflinching exploration of memory and identity in an era defined by both loss and possibility. Bold, uncompromising, and deeply resonant, Everything, Everyday invites you to confront the delicate art of living-and loving-in a world that is as beautiful as it is unpredictable.
Reviews / Votes
'Everything Everyday is written with grace and beauty in the face of it all, offering hope when everything, every day, can seem hopeless. With its insistence on witness, this is one of the most radical and righteous books you'll read this year' -- Alistair Braidwood * SNACK Magazine * 'We need more people like Lavery, who are willing and able to wield a verbal pick-axe' -- Roger Cox * Scotland on Sunday * 'Tender, searching, and luminous' -- Roger Robinson, Winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize 'Takes its audience from anger to hope and beyond' * Sunday Post * 'The poems are both fierce and tender, celebrating resistance, speaking against everyday injustice' * The Scotsman, Poem of the Week * 'A searing new poetry collection... the beauty of her poetry brings all the latent feelings, the ones we might have tried to scroll away from in these troubled times, firmly into focus' * Bookseller, Author Focus *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Edinburgh
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Birlinn General
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 197 mm
Width: 129 mm
Thickness: 13 mm
Weight
120 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-84697-737-4 (9781846977374)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Hannah Lavery is an award-winning poet and playwright. She was appointed Edinburgh Makar in November 2021 for a three year term. She is an associate artist with the National Theatre of Scotland and one of the winners of the Peggy Ramsay/Film4 Award 2022. Her debut poetry collection, Blood Salt Spring was published in March 2022 (Polygon).