Five Leaves Publications

Book details

In her debut pamphlet North by Northnorth, Elvire Roberts goes off-compass to find the vanishing point towards True North. She treads her way through queerness in all its meanings: eccentric, Queer, questionable, unwell and downright weird. Her poems ask how a person can bear to be in this world and still find true expression of themselves in their complex flux of identities. There is guidance from Daoism and Buddhism, but above all from the natural world, as questions shapeshift to emerge as insects, mammals, cephalopods, birds.

At its heart, North by Northnorth asks how the human animal can move from surviving to thriving.

About the Author

Elvire Roberts is a poet from the LGBTQ+ community in Nottingham and works as a signed language interpreter between BSL and English. With her first degree being in Chinese Studies, her writing celebrates the doors that languages and cultures open in our minds and bodies. She writes from a physiological reimagining of emotion, often through the animal, vegetable and mineral. Her poems have appeared in a range of publications including 14 Magazine, Envoi, Finished Creatures, Magma, Reliquiae, The Rialto, Tentacular and the Candlestick Press anthology Ten Poems About Getting Older.