Poems of heartbreak, loss and friendship from Hove's Blake Auden

Blake, aged 37, said: “Beekeeper is a full-length poetry collection focused on mental health, heartbreak, loss and friendship.

“More than anything else, Beekeeper is a book about its author and my own struggle with anxiety and loss.

“Through deeply vulnerable and personal poetry, I hope to be able to connect with readers across a wide social spectrum, helping them to recognise their own pain and helping them to feel less alone.

“Beekeeper is a book that’s designed to be written in, dog-eared, kept by the bedside. It’s a reminder that we all struggle with complex, deep-rooted emotions and that even when it feels like you’re lost in the darkness, you’re never on your own,” Blake added.

“I’ve written poetry for pleasure for a number of years, but I’ve only been brave enough to share my work fairly recently.

“I set up an Instagram account in February 2009, in the hope of being able to connect with a handful of people and maybe even help one or two of them feel like someone else is going through the same things as them.

“Today, I have 128,000 followers, and they, as much as anything else, inspire me to write.

“My first book, Tell The Birds She’s Gone, sold out three print runs exclusively through promotion on Instagram.

“That book focused almost exclusively on heartbreak, telling the story of a single, doomed relationship.

“Tell The Birds She’s Gone is now in its fourth full print run and is available at BlakeAuden.com.

“I wanted to write a second collection that focused more on anxiety and mental health – topics that seem to resonate strongly with my audience and are extremely close to my own heart.

“I’m currently working on a third book, which should be released early (in 2021).”

Blake, whose real name is John Pring, said: “I’ve been writing most of my adult life, but I’ve only been publishing my poetry since February 2019.

“I started publishing on the platform on the advice of a friend, who read some of the poems in my notebook and recommended I publish them on Instagram.”