Two poems published in Magma 83
Maria Ferguson’s poems ‘I didn’t get to say goodbye, I barely said hello’ and ‘Anxiety sneaks in through the window one October’ appear in Magma 83 (July 2022).
Alright! I’m Maria Ferguson, and I’m a poet and theatre-maker from Romford in Essex. My début one-woman show Fat Girls Don’t Dance won the Saboteur Award for Best Spoken Word Show in 2017. Follow-up show Essex Girl won Show of the Week at VAULT Festival in 2019 and was shortlisted for Soho Theatre’s Tony Craze Award.
My debut collection, Alright, Girl? was published by Burning Eye in March 2020 and was Highly Commended in the Forward Prizes. It was also available to listen to as a binaural recording as part of the Living Record Festival in 2021.
You can order your signed copy of the collection as well as my two playtexts here!
Extremely personal, yet highly relatable, Alright, Girl? is a frank exploration of class, gender and belonging. Maria Ferguson reflects on her working-class heritage, her journey into womanhood and the choices she must now face in an age of austerity and gentrification.
Full of heart and humour, these poems chart the familiarity of East End pubs, the pangs of loss, the mercy of love, and the inescapable bonds of female friendship.
Alright, Girl? was launched on Burning Eye Books’ Instagram page in April 2020 and you can watch it back on my Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube channels.
Flawless. An essential read for the 2020s.
Salena Godden
Ferguson is a poet for the people, washing her dirty poems in public and holding your eye as she does so. We need more voices like hers, democratic and challenging. Clever, funny, frank and uncompromising. A warrior.
Joelle Taylor
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Alright, Girl? at Living Record Festival
Maria Ferguson’s poetry collection ‘Alright, Girl?’ available as a binaural recording as part of Living Record Festival.
Highly Commended for the Forward Prize
Maria Ferguson’s poem ‘My Letters’ is one of the Highly Commended poems for the 2020 Forward Prize for Poetry.
Signed books available in my online shop
You can purchase signed copies of my two playtexts in my online shop! They’re both published by Oberon Books, and are available alongside my debut poetry collection Alright, Girl? (published by Burning Eye Books).
Maria Ferguson 