Please Do Not Touch This Exhibit

Jen Campbell grew up by the sea. She is a bestselling author and award-winning poet. Her most recent books include a short story collection, The Beginning of the World in the Middle of the Night, a series of children’s picture books about a book-loving dragon called Franklin, and The Sister Who Ate Her Brothers (Thames & Hudson, 2021), a collection of gruesome tales illustrated by Adam de Souza. She won the Jane Martin Poetry Prize in 2013, received an Eric Gregory Award in 2016, is Vlogger in Residence for the Poetry Book Society, and was a judge of the Forward Prize in 2018. She talks about books, fairy tales and disfigurement at youtube.com/jenvcampbell. Her poetry pamphlet The Hungry Ghost Festival was published by The Rialto in 2012. Her first book-length collection, The Girl Aquarium, was published by Bloodaxe Books in 2019. It was shortlisted for the poetry category of the Books Are My Bag Readers Awards 2019 and was a semifinalist for the Goodreads Choice Awards 2019 (Best Poetry category). She won the Spelt Poetry Competition 2022 for her poem 'The Hospital is Not My House' from her second collection, Please Do Not Touch This Exhibit (Bloodaxe Books, 2023), which is a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. She lives in London.

11 At First, the House Is Blue
12 Anatomy of the Sea
15 Dear [______] [1]
16 The Hospital Is Not My House
19 Dear [______] [2]
20 The Hospital Is Not a Place for Bodies
23 Dear [______] [3]
24 For a While, the House Is Green
25 The House of Mirrors Is Owned by the Freak Show
26 The Body Festival
27 Ghost-Whisperer
28 Sometimes, The House Is Made of Glass
29 Dear [______] [4]
30 Please Do Not Touch This Exhibit
31 Technical Rehearsal
32 First Thing, I Am a Forest
33 Dear [______] [5]
34 Alopecia
37 My Brain Is a Sleeping Thing
38 We Must Admit, the House Is Pink
39 Fell
40 For Some Reason, I Can’t Stop Writing About Lighthouses
41 In My Dream, the House Is Dark
42 When I Revisit This Room, I Want to Leave Again
45 Poem as Bad Doctor
46 Somehow, the House Is Orange
47 The Five Stages of IVF
48 When It Arrives, It Weighs 5kg
49 The Hospital Is Not Big Enough for the Two of Us
52 Trying to Gain Entry into The Republic of Motherhood
53 This Is Just to Say
54 When I Go to the Woods
55 The Weekend the Garden Reflected Our House
56 The Trees Are Part of the Process
57 Now, The House Is Red
58 This Doesn’t Have a Name Yet
60 The House Is All the Colours, All at Once
61 Common Side Effects