I’m over the moon to share my very first collection of poetry The Heart is a Muscle – Modern Poems About Love, Pain, Healing, and Joy, and I’m so honoured to have my poems share pages with the wonderful poets, Angie Dorsey and Nancy Davies.
THE HEART IS A MUSCLE – Modern Poems About Love, Pain, Healing, and Joy by Ev Bishop, Angie Dorsey, and Nancy Davies
The loss of a beloved pet. Unforeseen endings. Nature as a mirror, helping us to see the world and ourselves. Physical changes. The sensual, soothing seduction of food. New starts. The joy and heartbreak of friends, children, lovers…
The Heart is a Muscle is a special collection of contemporary poetry that recounts, reflects, and ruminates on great beauty and joy—and grief and struggle. The experiences of love, pain, healing, and joy are not linear. They do not begin and end in isolation from one another. Rather, they eddy and swirl like currents, sometimes buoying us up, other times sucking us under, as we travel the river of life.
Whether you’re struggling with grief or loss or are delightedly overwhelmed by the sheer beauty, preciousness, and possibility of life—or, perhaps, are bouncing between all those emotions day to day—we hope these poems meet you where you’re at and nourish you on your journey.
Book Details
Title: The Heart is a Muscle – Modern Poems About Love, Pain, Healing, and Joy
Authors: Ev Bishop, Angie Dorsey, and Nancy Davies
Publication date: October 27, 2026
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-77265-081-5
eBook ISBN: 978-1-77265-082-2
Other poems
“Resilient” by Ev Bishop, longlisted for Pulp Literature’s 2025 Magpie Award for Poetry.
“Irregular Shapes” by Ev Bishop, honourable mention in the 2016 Askew’s Foods’ Word on the Lake Writing Contest (Poetry category), published in the Word on the Lakeanthology, May 2016.
“The Heart is a Willow Tree” by Ev Bishop, Pulp Literature, Issue No. 10, Spring 2016
“Heritage“ by Ev Bishop won 1st Place in The Terrace Library Poetry Contest in 2007, and was presented to the public in a Terrace Art Gallery show, TEXT & TEXTURES as part of an amazing piece of art—a mixed-medium book—by Noreen Spence.
