Cherry Blossom at Nightbreak

Rishi Dastidar

Available to pre-order, this book will be dispatched close to publication date, 19/03/26

ISBN: 9781916760349

eISBN: 9781916760356

Price: £11.99

Publication date: 19^th March 2026

Format: Paperback / eBook

Territories: World

Extent: 72pp

DCF: Poetry Collections

Cover artwork by Ria Dastidar

Cherry Blossom at Nightbreak blooms with poems determined to do the generous work of love and hope – using the power of language to make change, express desire, and imagine the world as we'd like it to be.

Rishi Dastidar's poems, with their deft skill in moving from the surreal to the profound, are a perfect burst of joy in challenging times, effervescent and seriously playful, romancing cityscapes and bursting with wit.

Praise for Cherry Blossom at Nightbreak

'These poems froth with ideas and formal daring. Dastidar has an impeccable ear for the language of our epoch. Seductive and sublime – or, in the poet’s words: ‘tender tending towards glorious.' - Clare Pollard

'Cherry Blossom at Nightbreak embodies all the inventiveness and wit I’ve come to expect from Rishi Dastidar, whose humour first dazzles, then turns delight towards serious ends. These are poems that ‘open their arms to their world’ in all its richness and oddity, revelling in language and sensation, full of heart and hope. Dastidar is a poet who can intuit the patterin pattern and reveal the wonders there.' - Sarah Howe

Rishi Dastidar’s third collection, Neptune’s Projects, was longlisted for the Laurel Prize, and a poem from it was included in The Forward Book of Poetry 2024. He is also editor of The Craft: A Guide to Making Poetry Happen in the 21st Century (Nine Arches Press), and co-editor of Too Young, Too Loud, Too Different: Poems from Malika’s Poetry Kitchen (Corsair). He is chair of Wasafiri, the magazine of international contemporary writing, and a trustee of the Wordsworth Trust.

You may also like...

What do you do when you are a god – but powerless and unable to prevent one of your favourite species from their insatiable, accelerating death wish? Do you try to shout louder and more insistently, or instead reinvent yourself as a troubadour of romantic ruin, a barkeep, even a football manager? Such are the dilemmas posed by Rishi Dastidar in his third poetry collection Neptune’s Projects, a reshaping of mythology for the climate crisis era which gives bold consideration to the stark choices we face.

Find out more about Neptune's Projects

VISIT OUR BLOG

The Nine Arches Press blog features poems from many of our poets, as well as interviews and articles.

Join us here.