Smokestack Books: Beans in Snow

Beans in Snow: Jennifer Copley

Childhood smells of gingerbread and hot porridge. It wears red shoes, glass slippers and seven league boots. And everyone lives happily ever after. But it is also a dark wood full of hungry giants, big bad wolves and child-sized ovens. It is a place where 'brothers and sisters get separated - / boys turned into swans, / girls put into tall towers / where they have to climb down their own hair / to escape, then wander the earth / with thorns in their eyes.'

Beans in Snow is a stunning exploration of the world of childhood, its consolations and cruelties, real and imagined. Like Angela Carter, Liz Lochhead and Viki Feaver, Jennifer Copley is fascinated by the way we act out stories from childhood in our adult lives. Trying to find her brother after his death, she becomes Gerda, Gretel and the goose-girl, making sense of his death in memory, in imagination and in the power of story-telling. Beans in Snow is not just a brilliant and original re-working of some well-known fairy-tales, it is a book with something profound to say about childhood and growing up, about fear and belief, and about our enduring need for happy endings.

"urgent, visceral... not for the faint-hearted"

U.A. Fanthorpe

"charming, sensuous and disturbing"

Carol Rumens

"quietly life-enhancing, full of real rewards and surprising consolations"

W.N. Herbert

"a strong alternative reality, as refreshing and engaging as a visit to another country."

The North

Jennifer Copley was born in Barrow-in-Furness, where she still lives. She has published two pamphlets, Ice (2002) and House by the Sea (2003), and a full-length collection Unsafe Monuments (2006). In 2005 she was South Cumbria's Poet Laureate. In 2006 she was the national winner in the Ottakar's/Faber Poetry Competition. In 2007 she was awarded 2nd prize in the Academi Cardiff National Poetry Competition. Her work has appeared in many magazines and anthologies, including The Forward Prize Anthology 2008.