The Natural Way, by Roma Havers (Author).  Format: Paperback
 
Longlisted for the Forward (Jerwood) Prize for Best First Collection 2026
 
‘We’re trying the natural way’, Havers once said when asked about children in their queer partnership. What follows is their sparklingly disruptive debut, drawing on inside jokes, ironies and imaginings for new ways of thinking about what we call natural and the ways and paths we choose to get there.
 
From Oscar Wilde to an unlikely pelican, this book’s wandering way resists the traditional nature poem, instead digging into the muck and rock of queer wilderness. Formally inventive, these poems span the width of the page and draw on mathematics, tablecloth patterns and swimming pools for their structures. Ingenious and funny, Havers’ debut questions received ideas about inheritance and legacies: what if, it asks, we live outside the familiar, familial archive?