Gaia Holmes is a Luddenden-born poet whose work digs beneath the surface of mundane, urban life to reveal a remarkable seam of exoticism. Her carnival of characters - bingo callers, burger sellers, critical theorists - are all cast from the least expected places but, rejuvenated by Gaia's verse, find a new voice and a new ability to captivate. Dr James Graham's Celestial Bed marks the arrival of yet another great Yorkshire poet.

Somewhere
in the middle of a poem
you draw
the shape of the plough
on the stickleback ridges
of my spine.
There is no first line
to explain the beginning.
- from ‘Constellations’

Gaia is a graduate of Huddersfield University’s English with Creative Writing BA, and has previously made a living as a busker, a lollypop lady and poet in residence at Bradford Libraries.

Praise for Gaia’s work

Sassy and streetwise, dark and blue, these are poems that are high on words; full of rich imaginings and dislocated love affairs, peopled with ordinary folk made exotic and with the strange made true. Read them.
- Amanda Dalton

These poems are made from intense sensual experience, bursting with colours, flavours and textures. Gaia Holmes has an eye for the strangeness of things, from "fat lenses of jellyfish/packed in jigsaws of ice" to the sounds and smells of the steelworks, where "metal shrieks as it softens and throbs/under the core of heat".
- Jean Sprackland

There’s something in these poems that I can only call ‘detailed intimacy’ and ‘closely-worked humanity’; the language is inclusive but still challenging and draws me in to reading after reading. A splendid collection that will grow on you.
– Ian McMillan

'If our heart is heavy with desire it is almost impossible to enjoy our surroundings, no matter how lovely they are...'
– Frieda Hughes
Read Frieda Hughes' Times column on Gaia Holmes here.

To hear Gaia reading from 'Dr James Graham's Celestial Bed', see the bottom of this page.

You can order online from Amazon also at 20% discount: click here.
Or you can order a copy from www.inpressbooks.co.uk online or by ringing 020 8832 7464.

TRADE enquiries should be through CENTRAL Books (orders to Central Books, 99 Wallis Road, London E9 5LN; tel 0845 458 9911); fax 0208 533 5821; email orders@centralbooks.com).
Comma Poetry is rep-ed by Troika.

Gaia Holmes reads a selection of poems from 'Dr James Graham's Celestial Bed'. Follow the links for each recorded poem.

Burger Man
Claustrophobia
Exposure
Lecture Notes
Living With A Poet
Peninsula
Seasoned