sad thing angry is an expression of the inexpressible: the fracturing of a relationship with living.
In this unique and brilliant debut, Emma Jeremy finds new language to navigate a journey where guilt and hope, grief and isolation live side by side. In a voice that’s both daring and one-of-a-kind, these poems hold a quiet wisdom earned from knowledge delivered too early. This ambitious collection hums with complex feeling, bringing into question what being alive means, when all you can think about is death.
“I am a dour and obsessive person and I am in these dour days obsessed with the dour and obsessive sad thing angry by Emma Jeremy. These poems are funny and horrifying, destabilizing, depersonalizing, extremely weird, and so extremely smart. “i should have picked up a lamb many years ago / so as it grew into a sheep / i could have grown stronger,” Jeremy writes with characteristic twistiness. For this and other important regrets, I recommend sad thing angry, which, like the lamb, will strengthen you. Pick it up.”
— Natalie Shapero
Emma Jeremy is a British poet, born in Bristol. She is the author of Safety Behaviour (Smith|Doorstop, 2019) and a former winner of the New Poets Prize. Her poems have featured in publications such as Poetry London, Poetry Review and Magma. sad thing angry is her debut collection.