Praise for Moon Base One
Jemma L. King’s Moon Base One is bold, strange, gorgeously wrought – full of static and starlight, as well as strange beings and interactions along the way … As a collection, it is impetuously imaginative, taking bold and daring leaps across space and time, which makes for a very thrilling read indeed.
And, altogether, it is highly – very highly – recommended. – Mab Jones, Buzz Magazine
About Jemma
Jemma L King is the winner of the Terry Hetherington Young Welsh Writer of the Year Award and was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Wales Book of the Year Prize and The Sundress Prize for her critically acclaimed debut collection, ‘The Shape of a Forest’ (Parthian). King was also honoured with a Scritture Giovani fellowship, and followed the success of her first book with her second book ‘The Undressed’ (Parthian). In 2024, Jemma was awarded the Cambrian Mountains gold medal for her poem The Valley.
Jemma’s third solo collection, Moon Base One, was released by Parthian in Oct 2025. The poet has been featured on the BBC, in the Guardian, CBC and Sky TV. She has read her work internationally, including at the March Hare festival in Canada, and the Berlin Literature Festival. She continues to explore new poetic forms and themes, captivating readers worldwide.
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Shortlisted for The Dylan Thomas Prize
These poems of desire, loss and revenge explore lives caught in the gravity of their own orbit.
Haunting, distinctive and sensual, debut poetry collection The Shape of a Forest has unblinking scope. This sophisticated debut collection moves from the historical to the contemporary: Genghis Kahn surveys his territory whilst Amelia Earhart disappears to myth. The Belvedere Apollo is dug up heralding the onset of The Renaissance as a tiger meets a foe in a Siberian Forest, the Pendle witches are hung in Lancashire, and in tsunami-struck Japanese gardens, South Sea islands and New York hotel rooms, lives are loosened like milk teeth.
The Shape of a Forest is a powerful survey of life and of human experience that spans centuries and the continents.
Reviews
Natalie ann holborow
“Jemma L. King transports the reader between the sea and the stars; between mother and child… so these are not separate spaces but part of the same orbit. King has a gift for writing in a way that’s relentlessly inventive and so often breathtaking.
Raw heart, electric imagery and undeniable skill – Jemma L. King’s best yet.”
emily blewitt
“A masterclass in metaphor. From foetal spacemen to the ever-shifting landscape of the maternal body, here is poetry microcosmic and macrocosmic, intimate and vast, gorgeous and visceral.
It moved me; it made me want to write; it was brimful of loss and hope and complexity. I loved it.”
Tour Dates
Oct 18th, 2025
Poetry Pharmacy
Bishop’s Castle
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NOv 2nd, 2025
Gwisgo Bookworm Festival
Aberaeron
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May 8th, 2026
Cellar Bards
Cardigan
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