Selima Hill’s latest collection, The Hat, is a disturbing portrayal of a woman’s struggle to regain her identity. Her story emerges through a series of short poems, often related to animals: how she is preyed upon and betrayed, misunderstood, compromised and not allowed to be herself. Like all of Selima Hill’s books, The Hat charts ‘extreme experience with a dazzling excess’, with dark humour and surprising combinations of homely and outlandish.

The Hat is published at the same time Selima Hill’s Gloria: Selected Poems, which draws on ten previous collections.

Poetry Book Society Recommendation

‘Wayward, funny, terrifying. Her writing scintillates with hatred, love and absurd insights.’ – Gillian Beer, Financial Times

‘Her adoption of surrealist techniques of shock, bizarre, juxtaposition and defamiliarisation work to subvert conventional notions of self and the feminine…Hill returns repeatedly to fragmented narratives, charting extreme experience with a dazzling excess.’ – Deryn Rees-Jones, Modern Women Poets

‘Every page reveals her unique ability to invert the world and shake it, until it reveals its truth.’ – Katheleen Jamie & Maurice Riordan, PBS Bulletin

‘Brilliant mischief.’ – Independent

‘She is truly gifted. She invests mundane things with visionary, delirious brilliance.’ – Graham Swift, Sunday Times

‘Hill is a unique voice in British poetry, handling central subjects with wit, great metaphorical beauty, and deep clarity. Her two most characteristic features, the off-the-wall images and no-holds-barred straight talk, work flawlessly together.’ – Ruth Padel & Sean O’Brien, PBS Bulletin