Released 28th February, 2025 // 76 pages // 978-1-916938-77-9 // RRP: £12.99
In Introduction to Cloud Care, Laura Theis blends lyrical precision with a deep sense of wonder, crafting poetry that invites readers into a world where the mundane and the magical coexist seamlessly. Her poems explore themes of nature’s quiet power, the enigma of memory, and the complexity of transformation. Often laced with humour and profound tenderness, they evoke both intimacy and expansiveness. With a voice both contemplative and playful, Theis reimagines self-discovery and connection in ways that are unexpectedly illuminating. This collection celebrates the beauty of what is seen and the irresistible allure of what lies hidden.
PRAISE for Introduction to Cloud Care:
Introduction to Cloud Care struck me with its tenderness and warmth: reading it felt like a springtime walk or seeing your kindest friend at a party. Through a range of encounters and transformations—with an unborn daughter, a dandelion-therapist, the haunting characters of Hansel and Gretel—beauty ‘is never a question’. Simultaneously, these poems are not naive, bearing witness to trees awaiting ‘their respective beheadings’, and deeply in touch with their instincts, ready to ‘run / as soon as running’s required.’ Read it in a meadow, under an oak tree, or hidden in the shed at a house party.”
— Bryony Littlefair
In Laura Theis’ third collection, published by the inimitable Broken Sleep Books, clouds wait to be asked the right question, muntjac apparitions emerge out of nowhere, daffodils bloom from under sofas and a non-existent child chides her mother for lack of empathy. Surreal, blissful and mesmerising, with each poem effortlessly revealing fresh amazements of the kind we experienced as children turning the pages of our first stories, Introduction to Cloud Care already has the hallmark of a classic — coming as it does from a mind infused by fairy tales and ‘dark forests/ grimm siblings’. I loved spending time in Laura’s magical world and plan to revisit often.
— Jenny Lewis
Inside the light and air of Laura Theis’s poems, you will find beautiful and sensitive stories of our connection to the natural world and wry observations of desire and the human search for intimacy. This is touching, funny, truly gorgeous writing.
— Vanessa Lampert
ABOUT Laura Theis:
Laura Theis writes in her second language. Her Elgin-Award-nominated debut how to extricate yourself, an Oxford Poetry Library Book-of-the-Month, won the Brian Dempsey Memorial Prize. A Spotter’s Guide To Invisible Things received the Live Canon Collection Prize and the Society of Authors’ Arthur-Welton-Award. Other accolades include the Alpine Fellowship Writing Prize, Poets&Players Prize, Oxford Brookes Poetry Prize, AM Heath Prize, and Mogford Prize. Her children’s debut Poems from a Witch’s Pocket (Emma Press) will be published in autumn 2025.
