Museum of Ice Cream

Jenna Clake was born in Staffordshire in 1992. Her debut collection of poetry, Fortune Cookie, won the Melita Hume prize in 2016, and was published in 2017 by Eyewear. It received an Eric Gregory Award from the Society of Authors in 2018, and was shortlisted for a Somerset Maugham Award in the same year. Her pamphlet of prose poems, CLAKE/ Interview for, was published by Verve Poetry Press in 2018, and was featured as a spring pamphlet in the Poetry Book Society Bulletin in 2019. She was shortlisted for the inaugural Rebecca Swift Women Poets’ Prize, commended in the University of Hertfordshire Single Poem Prize, and placed second in the Newcastle Poetry Prize in 2018. Her second full collection, Museum of Ice Cream, was published by Bloodaxe Books in 2021. Jenna is writer in residence for ORCA, writing on cetacean conservation, marine mammals, and whale watching. Her poetry criticism has appeared in Poetry London, The Poetry School, The Compass and The Poetry Review. She has a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Birmingham and lectures at Teesside University.

• 11 Cloud Appreciation Society12 I would die for you in the best way possible13 Wooden doll, total being14 Immersive experience of all the things I want for myself (that are bad for me)16 Vixen17 How much longer until I get this out?18 I wanted Agent Cooper to save my life20 Sponge cake, pound cake, gateau21 there is no marine snow here, my friend22 Self-portrait as the opening of a window on a hot morning23 Organisational Skills for the Hungry26 Milk, Strawberry, Sugar27 The omission is meaningless28 M’s letters to tumblr32 Like other women33 I hid fish in my pockets and forgot about it for days34 Siesta for Olivia36 All our problems began with a woman eating37 On feeling my eggshell heart break38 Jen’s Sweet Shop40 i am driving for hours tonight; i didn’t bring snacks41 I could cry, yes, I could42 It’s no longer about us, it’s got to be about me44 Elegy for Balto from the Bottom of a Frozen Lake46 Quayside of Dogs47 Self-portrait as a pink dressing room49 Bread, orange, aura50 Oyster Delight52 if you’re near the park, come find me, i’m having a picnic53 Still life of newspapers folded on a bistro set54 Sunday roast on a dark wood table56 I try to make sense of things by standing very close to windows58 Tell me if you prefer your carrots as sticks or coins and I’ll always remember59 Garments I have dreamed of but will

The trajectory between Clake’s debut collection and Museum of Ice Cream is logical but still beautifully unexpected: the linguistic precision and surreal swerves are stronger than ever, but something deepens and resonates as the voice transitions from instructive, to consoling, to lost, often within the same stanza. These are poems of such sadness and grace; fear transfigured by a powerful imagination into endlessly explorable terrains. Not so much to guide as to reach out to you in your own maze of confusion, wonder and dread; which is all I ever really ask of poetry.