Mastications

"I'm like Marcus Aurelius, only shitter"

Following his previous collection, Release, Richard Latham returns with Mastications - an uncompromising, darkly observant, and deeply resonant collection of poetry that strips away the superficiality of the modern world.

Divided into three distinct acts, this collection maps the exhausting reality of navigating a system that demands everything and gives back nothing:

• Dissonance: A cynical, sharp-eyed observation of the external world. These poems explore the friction of the modern grind and the isolation of living in a society that feels "artificial and devoid of substance".

• Reckoning: A heavy, internal descent. Here, the author confronts the ghosts of his younger self, carries the weight of past mistakes, and reaches the unyielding "bedrock" of absolute emotional depletion, where the world has stolen every ounce of inspiration.

• Sanctuary: A final retreat into the "impenetrable night". Moving away from the noise and demands of everyday life, this act seeks a quiet and hard-won peace, culminating in a gentle moment of solidarity with man's best friend.

Brutally honest and deliberately devoid of toxic positivity, Mastications does not offer easy answers, grand epiphanies, or forced sunrises. Instead, it serves as a deeply relatable reflection for anyone who has ever felt ground down by the daily grind. It is a sanctuary for the weary - a quiet place to sit when the world has taken too much.