The Fossil of Us

What will we leave
in the ashes and dust

What will become
the fossil of us?

A collection of poetry for anyone trying to stay tender in a world that feels like it's fraying.

In the Natural History Museum in London, with tired feet and a heavy toddler in arms, Will Small looked at the fossil record of ancient species and couldn't shake this question: when someone studies us, what will they find?

This collection moves between hills hoists and climate collapse, bath bombs and prayer, the death of the family dog and the deaths of children in places we scroll past.

God loses faith in humanity. A chatbot gives home renovation advice. Human inefficiency is celebrated.

Funny where it needs to be, and devastating where it earns the right to be, The Fossil of Us doesn't resolve the tension between the smallness of our daily lives and the scale of what we're facing. It insists that tension is where we must live.

“In these poems, the ordinary acts of living, grieving, laughing and tending become the fragile, luminous record of what it meant to be human.”

— Sara M. Saleh, award-winning writer and human rights lawyer

"Will Small joins the bravest of humanity excavating stunning prose from the mud of life."

— Scott Erickson, author of Honest Advent and In the Low

"Will Small writes from within the microcosm of ordinary life and parenting... If what matters most isn't the big historical gesture but the daily minutiae and practices of attention and care, then I can't think of a better medium than poetry to fossilise."

— Keri Glastonbury, Associate Professor of English and Writing, The University of Newcastle

"This collection of poems shines a light on the seeds of love that are buried within the seemingly most ordinary acts of the everyday. Whether it's hanging laundry, mowing the lawn, or a sudden moment of grief, the way we interact and move through the world in every hour is of the utmost spiritual significance."

— Kelly Latimore, Artist and Iconographer

“Will’s writing has a way of breathing life into the mundane and reinvigorates a wonder for what we take for granted. If you feel like you’ve been breathing stale air, this is the book for you."

— Andrew Cox, founder and creative producer of Canberra Poetry Slam

"The Fossil of Us is an exquisite collection of raw spirituality and tender humanity explored through the eye of our everyday... touching and thoughtful poems contemplating our flaws and what we will become as we exist through fragile and tender moments of parenthood and marriage."

— Fiona Lloyd, award-winning author