Lobe

Winner of the 2024 New Poets Prize, judged by Holly Hopkins.

A gold bangle, a barber’s shop and Diana Princess of Wales in an Indian wedding video. In Lobe, Cia Mangat navigates what we inherit and what we leave behind in a book which plays with private and public mythologies. These poems create a world of love and surveillance, where Diana’s revenge dress prepares for the paparazzi and aunties gossip in the threading parlor. Bodies are pierced and cut from magazines while the wedding halls beckon. Lobe is a book of resistance and reimagining, where Di escapes her buttercream wedding, a woman shaves her head and ‘george michael will sing every song you have ever wanted to you /directly accompanied by hundreds of thousands of people you love’.