Shelling Peas with My Grandmother in the Gorgiolands

"A thrilling debut that kept me outdoors in the grassy world of communal lives. I love the formal dazzle and linguistic dare that spoke of defiance, survival and utter joy." - Daljit Nagra, author of Look We Have Coming to Dover!

‘‘There is a Romany saying, ‘We are all one: all who are with us are ourselves’: Sarah Wimbush’s collection draws us into the world of Travellers with linguistic panache and delight.”— David Morley, leading British poet from Roma background

‘I loved this stunning and substantial collection that enfolds us into the lives and experiences of Roma communities and explores mining heritage in Yorkshire.’ – Will Mackie, New Writing North

‘Shelling Peas with My Grandmother in the Gorgiolands is wise, witty and generous… It’s a fresh and alive space of reflection, and a celebration of a voiceless people; an elegy to a way of life, and to a language.’ – Maggie Mackay, The Friday Poem

‘Another female poet who drives us deep into the country of local dialect is Leeds-based Sarah Wimbush who, in Shelling Peas with my Grandmother in the Gorgiolands, introduces us to the world of Travellers, with their vardos (horse-drawn caravans), their jukels (dogs) and their dikkering (fortune-telling habits). It’s all very spirited and spikily humorous, and it’s solidly rooted in her northern territory, with its slag heaps, furnace waste and even the ghostly long-gone togetherness of miners at Markham Main Colliery, the last to stay out.’ – Michael Glover, The Tablet

‘Here, in a major collection for Bloodaxe, is a humble, and humbling, homage to her roots, scoping widely over the terrain of the sometimes less than itinerant Traveller and the backwaters of Yorkshire, which have collectively helped to shape a piecemeal sense of identity. The result is beautifully crafted and artfully delivered, drawing on a kaleidoscope of images, anecdotes and memories that clearly owe a great deal to research’ – Steve Whitaker, The Yorkshire Times

‘Wimbush is akin to Carol Ann Duffy in her mastery of the dramatic monologue, using the genre to bring to life strong, defiant women... Shelling Peas with My Grandmother in the Gorgiolands is a rich, matrilineal quilt of a collection in which language is an heirloom intangibly precious yet so generously given. Wimbush’s poems form complete worlds on the page that keep turning after it ends, full of characters who refuse to be written out of history.’ – Ellora Sutton, Mslexia

'This is a captivating collection offering important insights into a way of life perhaps previously little-known or understood.' - Mary Mulholland, The Alchemy Spoon

‘It is a magnificent collection, and hard to credit as a debut.’ - James Roderick Burns, London Grip

‘Shelling Peas with My Grandmother in the Gorgiolands deals with the poet’s background in the coalfield and steelmaking area of South Yorkshire. It also deals at length with her Gypsy/Traveller heritage courtesy of a maternal grandmother… This is an impressive collection… a book of poetry where the poet is candid in her exploration of her roots, playful in her use of language and joyful in her celebration of people and places. It is a highly enjoyable and engaging read.’ – John Irving Clarke, Write Out Loud

'Repeated motifs or characters hold the collection together, despite the disparate voices ... This creates a sense of an integrative community which has shaped Wimbush, whose roots in, and affection for, South Yorkshire shine through. A powerful and engaging collection, and we await her next collection with eager anticipation.' - Hannah Stone, The Lake