Aoife Lyall’s The Day Before beautifully captures the ordinary moments in life that crystallise in the face of crisis and threat. Focusing on the earliest weeks and months of the pandemic, these intimate and meticulous poems mark the lived experience of someone who must navigate a world she no longer understands, exploring first steps and last breaths, milestones, millstones, emigration, fly-tipping and the entire world to be found in the space behind the front door. 

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Tender, challenging, and historically significant, The Day Before asks what it means when home is the one place you cannot leave, and the one place you cannot go.

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The Day Before is Aoife Lyall’s second collection, following her widely praised debut, Mother, Nature, which was shortlisted for the Scottish First Book Award in Scotland's National Book Awards in 2021

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‘Her theme is ‘heaven in the ordinary’ – moments of illumination in everyday life. Written during the pandemic (chillingly evoked in the poem ‘Moss’), these moments become necessary for survival. There’s an imagist precision here, with real emotional power.’ – Graeme Richardson, The Sunday Times, on The Day Before