Canongate signs poetry collection from Sissay

Canongate has acquired Let the Light Pour In, the new poetry collection from Lemn Sissay OBE. Publisher at large Francis Bickmore bought world rights from Clare Conville at C&W Agency. The collection will publish in September 2023.

For the past decade, Sissay has composed a short poem as dawn breaks each morning. Let the Light Pour In is a collection of the best of these poems, described by the publisher as a “life-affirming, witty and full of wonder”.

Sissay said: “I have a love for these poems which are very personal, 10 years of dawn rhymes out there floating like spores in morning light. They started in the virtual world and I’m happy they are being brought into the physical one this September. I’m excited to be working once again with my publisher Canongate Books.”

Bickmore commented: “Lemn Sissay’s latest poems are miniature odes to resilience and renewal. The collection captures that spirit. We could all use a little lift now and then and booksellers and readers are in for precisely that this September when we publish Let the Light Pour In in a very tactile – and giftable – hardback edition.”

Conville added: “As ever, we are enormously proud to represent Lemn for his beautiful life-affirming collection of poems.”