Sometimes it’s hard to keep looking up at the stars when the gutter we’re in seems so full of sh*t.

But isn’t that why we need poetry?

Oscar Wilde wrote some of his best poetry when he was in prison for ‘the love that dare not speak its name’.

Nelson Mandela held fast to his ‘unconquerable soul’ on Robben Island with the help of the words a poet wrote about his battle with tuberculosis a century before.

So maybe it’s not inconceivable that the words in this little book could help you put some of the sh*t in perspective, get all the important bits of your life – like sleep, work, food, travel, love and learning – in some kind of balance, so you can go back to star-gazing again . . .

Taking as its starting point the classic ‘wheel of balance’ life-coach model, this beautifully packaged collection of extracts and short poems gathers wisdom old and new in a perfect gift for anyone who needs comfort in this f**ked up world of ours.

‘This is not a poetry book as you know it, this is a life raft.’ Emerald Street on Poems for a World Gone to Sh*t.