Description
Heather Cook has been placed or shortlisted in various poetry competitions, including Buxton, Ware, Arundel, Hysteria and Vole. In 2023, she was a joint winner of the Frosted Fire First Pamphlet Award with ‘Out of the Ordinary’. She has always been fascinated by the rich complexity of everyday life, writing warmly about people’s reactions to life’s ups and downs, capturing a whole range of emotions and often finding humour in unexpected places.
Her recent cancer diagnosis and ensuing treatments feature in this latest pamphlet and, as usual, she writes with unflinching honesty, revealing the shock and anger she felt as well as an appreciation of the kindness experienced along the way. Heather lives in Surrey with her husband, two rescued cats and a variety of visiting wildlife.
Details:
Publication Date: 30th September 2025
Author: Heather Cook
ISBN: 978-1-0684474-2-6
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Praise for Beware the Exploding Yoghurt Pot
Wit, charm and elegance
“Heather’s ‘Beware the Exploding Yoghurt Pot’ is an intimate journey through her experience with breast cancer. Despite the vulnerable subject matter, her work carries itself with wit, charm and elegance. Every poem cuts deep emotionally in a creative way; whether it’s finding camaraderie in Lucozade or comfort in Marmite, Heather draws out a surprising perspective which will be sure to have you giggling, teary-eyed, or reaching for tissues.” HJ
No flinching away from uncomfortable realities
“This collection allows readers to share an intimate personal journey, as Heather Cook movingly describes her experience of breast cancer. Its title proves to be a clever metaphor and an apt one, for like the rogue yoghurt pot bursting in her fridge, cancer explodes without warning in her ‘very contented life’. All that is ordinary becomes disrupted, suddenly unpredictable.
The text throughout is enhanced with appealing line drawings; the poetry ranges in style and tone. Heather explores aspects of diagnosis and treatment, responses of other people, and the tsunami of her own contrasting emotions. Some poems vibrate with fury, grief or bewilderment, others are hopeful or humorous. The conflict between denial and growing fear, for example, is sharply apparent in ‘The Confessional’, while an undercurrent of anger ripples through ‘Don’t Call it a Pathway’. The restraint of ‘Loneliness in Bay 3’ only intensifies the poignancy. And the bouncy rhymes of ‘Hats’ offer a lighter view of hair loss.
In an introductory note the author suggests her poems and observations are ‘raw, rude and real’. There is certainly no flinching away from uncomfortable realities, nor is there any slump into self-pity. Heather writes with openness, courage, and a determined positivity. The poems in Beware The Exploding Yoghurt Pot will resonate with many readers.” AI
Hard truths and signposts of hope
“Heather Cook has been through a lot and has a gift for underplaying horror by focussing on detail. She expresses hard truths about the effects of chemotherapy, providing a roadmap which gives signposts of hope to others. The poems are alive with humour, interesting metaphors and clever use of sparse language.
In places, this is a fun take on a deadly serious subject. In others, the pain behind the words percolates through. Her bitterness, like the strawberries she features, is coated with honey. Yet she proves herself as resilient as the beech tree she writes about in the last poem in the collection.” DP
Personal but not self-pitying
“I have known Heather for several years as a fellow member of “Woking writers Circle” and have always been impressed with not only her command of language but the subtle imagery she creates in her poetry. The journey that she shares with the reader is both personal but not self-pitying. Indeed she has taken the fear and devasting news that a cancer diagnosis brings with stoic resolve. It is a journey of self-discovery but also one of humility with quiet anger expressed through her verse. Very few people would take the struggles of a cancer diagnosis an opportunity to explore the boundaries of their creativity with equal measures of detachment and intimacy.
Her journey , whilst reflective, is not without genuine empathy. Her plight is measured by hope whereas others confront a preferred hastened end that their love ones cannot understand. “Beware the exploding Yoghurt pot” is both a literary delight and an insight into the journey of diagnosis , treatment and recovery from Cancer expressed in an innovative and touching way.” KE
Bracing honesty, unique observations and inimitable humour
In Beware the Exploding Yoghurt Pot, Heather Cook bravely shares her recent experience of breast cancer. With her bracing honesty, unique observations and inimitable humour, Heather offers us a fresh and approachable perspective. Heather’s poems are always beautifully crafted and satisfying, and this skill helps the reader absorb both the severity but also see shades of light in the tedium of her treatment. The poems give comfort and support to those facing a similar diagnosis; offer loved ones insights to its impact; and convey heartfelt thanks to all those involved in patient care. Heather’s recovery is the wonderful result of this traumatic time but she can also be proud that her creativity was put to positive use. Interspersed with drawings by Heather Moulson and with stunning titles such as ‘Feral Woman’ and ‘Unworthy Breasts’ the raw, rude, reality of this ‘lippy’ woman’s experience makes for compelling reading. SG
Vivid memorable poetry
‘Heather Cook’s Beware the Exploding Yoghurt Pot is a brave, witty and deeply human account of living with breast cancer. With unflinching honesty, Cook turns hospital gowns, waiting rooms and even Lucozade into vivid, memorable poetry. Humour and tenderness run through every page, transforming fear into moments of resilience and laughter. Heather Moulson’s spare black-and-white sketches enrich the collection, offering visual counterpoints that are at once sensitive and bold. Together, words and images create a book that is companionable, unsentimental and full of life, a testament to the power of poetry and art to illuminate even the darkest journeys.’ RW
Honesty and Grace
‘Beware the exploding yoghurt pot’ charts Heather’s journey through breast cancer with honesty and grace. The early poems are filled with the anguish of suspicion, the human instinct to downplay the monumental and magnify the trivial, and the tense silence before a diagnosis. Each poem reveals the struggle to balance strength with vulnerability, seeking a “new normal,” clinging to hope even as tragedy presses against her efforts to appear whole. Heather reaffirms her identity with powerful declarations, personifying cancer as a wolf — a force to be resisted with the ferocity of her younger self — while anger and outrage rise against and for the journey she must take but with a fiery refusal to be passive.
These poems are not only of struggle, they are also of resilience. Humorous but tragic verses capture the aftermath of chemo, where hair falls like autumn leaves and daily life gleams with altered significance. Heather acknowledges loss, questions her own body, and contrasts her coping with that of her partner, yet still she craves the small joys of normalcy. By the closing poems, hope returns — not naive, but weathered — and relief settles in like a final exhale. It is a moving, complex testimony her will to endure.’ SM
Full of humour and bravery
‘Beware the Exploding Yoghurt Pot offers a raw, intimate account of Heather’s journey through breast cancer, from the initial diagnosis to the final operation. It’s not just a personal story, but a powerful invitation to walk beside her through each stage of fear, exhaustion, and resilience. Yet through it all, there’s her immense humour, trying to keep dark things light, highlighting her ongoing bravery.
For those who haven’t experienced cancer firsthand, this book is an eye-opener. It will help readers better understand what friends and family might endure and quietly prepare them should they ever face it themselves. Heather doesn’t shy away from the brutal realities; the loss of dignity, mental anguish, the relentless procedures, and the constant fear of the unknown.
The poem “Don’t call it a pathway” challenges the sanitised language often used to describe cancer treatment. Heather reframes it as a dark tunnel, not a gentle path, and that honesty is what makes the collection so compelling.
The book ends sooner than you’d like and this emotional journey feels only partly done. Readers will be eager for a second volume, to continue walking with Heather as she navigates what comes next.’ FW
Filled with grit and bubbles
‘Beware the Exploding Yogurt Pot is filled with grit and bubbles. The bubbles lift the reader, bringing impromptu smiles, (Hats), while the grit reminds us that this book is based on a very real experience, during which the author’s feet felt every pebble along the road, (September Leaf Fall). There is no shortage of surprises and change of tone. There is anger, grief, pathos, a touch of the bizarre and through it all the writer’s indomitable spirit shines through.’ TB
Smorgasbord of emotions
‘Heather Cook offers us a smorgasbord of emotions – bewilderment, terror, acceptance, anger and tenderness – well-seasoned with wry humour. With brilliant, uncompromising imagery, she paints in electrifying detail her confrontation with ‘the news that waits the other side of now.’
It is impossible to remain unmoved by this deeply personal journey with the ‘cancer wolf’ from diagnosis to resolution. This exciting meld of poetry and prose concludes with Heather’s reflection ‘how very privileged I am to be alive.’ I feel very privileged to have read her book.’ MT
Life affirming
‘Yogurt’s ‘fruity innocence’ suddenly exploding in a fridge is a wonderful image for Heather Cook’s personal account of her journey from cancer diagnosis to hopeful future. This engaging and self-mocking story will strike a chord with anyone who has encountered cancer, either personally or with family or friends. In other words, most of us.
Along the way Cook is ‘made brave by fear’ in a GP’s waiting room and encounters ‘The cancer wolf’ which ‘sees no need to slink. He struts and skips…’ She wears hospital gowns ‘These prickly pornographic rags’ and when chemo makes her ‘Brain turned to mush’ she writes ‘I wander round my head/searching for a name.’
Her varied references to meeting her consultant are eventually summarised as ‘chats between a totally reasonable consultant and a lippy, bald old bag.’
Learning from others in the chemo room, Cook meets a family man with terminal cancer. ‘He’s doing chemo just for them/when all he wants to do is die.’ An example of how ‘The bravery of fellow patients has made me conscious of my own wobbliness.’
This life-affirming book seamlessly blends poetry with some prose memoir, and its final paragraph reads: I am closing the door on cancer now, although there is every possibility that it will not be closing the door on me. I am eager to move forward, to ease back into normality, while remembering how very privileged I am to be alive.’’ HT
Well Written and Insightful
‘This is the story of one person’s experiences of breast cancer, from diagnosis through treatment and into recovery, told through poetry and prose. Divided into three sections, it provides a powerful picture of the author’s shock, indignation and fear as she grapples with her new and unwelcome situation.
Accompanied with illustrations, the writing is a mixture of anger, clarity and black humour. In the first poem, the analogy of the exploding yoghurt pot and the diagnosis of cancer works well; yoghurt, regarded as a healthy food, suddenly exploding in a similar way to how the author’s ‘very contented life’ was unexpectedly threatened by cancer.
The Shock and Rage section conveys exactly those sentiments through verse and comment, as Heather progresses to diagnosis and the task of informing friends. She mentions the positive value of distractions during this time; something many people will be familiar with while waiting for crucial test results.
‘Diagnosis – Appointment with the Consultant’ picks up on the awkwardness that still surrounds cancer: the reluctance, even from the consultant, to say the word aloud; the feeling one shouldn’t make a fuss; consultants having to drop bombshell news and then move on to the next patient. The last line shows such irony: ‘Nurse tells me parking will be free’, as though this will make everything okay.
Preparation is the next section. ‘A Small Procedure’ captures beautifully the humanness of the patient verses the scientific minds of hospital staff. High blood pressure is simply another job to be dealt with ‘necessitating liberal doses of expensive sedative’, the patient’s high anxiety levels not discussed. And the pulling, tugging and probing of her body to gather the required information, leaves her feeling demoralised, her flesh becoming anonymous in the process.
In the final section, Acceptance, the irreverent tone of ‘Greet your Chemo with a Smile’ shows more humour on the part of the author. Two poems in this section cover the distress of hair loss, while another focuses on the sudden desire to wear hats. The line in Lucozade that reads ‘Weakened now by health-restoring poison’, demonstrates the weirdness of the situation; taking something to make you feel so much worse before the body can restore itself.
Loneliness in Bay 3 is very poignant; a snapshot of someone ready to die but who goes through chemo to please a family who cannot accept his fate – yet another side to the treatment of cancer.
The Beech and I creates a beautiful image of how the author searches each spring for the first green shoots to appear on the beloved beech tree in her garden. She likens this to how she checks to see if her hair is beginning to grow again. It is a poem of hope and survival.
The final entry, It’s Done is a reflection on all that has happened and it’s lovely that one of the things the writer notes as she looks back is the kindness of others and the bravery of fellow patients.
The Exploding Yoghurt Pot is a well-written and insightful look at one person’s journey through cancer. As someone who has been through the experience some years ago, many of the poems resonated with me, the disbelief, frustration and confusion, the knowledge that the medics are doing all they can for you but because of the nature of the treatment, it doesn’t always feel like it. For those watching a loved one go through this experience, it provides a good understanding of the turmoil such a diagnosis can cause, speaking the truth without dwelling on despondency or lack of hope. The author uses humour to deal with many of her feelings, showing how it is possible, and probably advantageous, to do this at any given opportunity. I’m sure many people will be able to connect with and find this collection helpful on a range of different levels.’ KS
Praise for Out of the Ordinary
Each poem in this collection is a reminder that the unexamined life is not worth living, as emphasised by Grayson Perry: ‘It is okay to celebrate the ordinary’. Each of these beautifully rendered glimpses of an ordinary examined life speak to a me I already know but have somehow forgotten; and in that knowing they remind me to be present in this moment, for as Heather says, ‘Behind me yesterday still festers unresolved. Tomorrow is an act of faith’. LPH
