About this event
Join Brent Libraries for a moving exploration of poetry that delves into the tender complexities of endings and beginnings. Featuring the powerful voices of Caroline Smith and Erica Hesketh, this event highlights poems that speak deeply to the heart—capturing the challenges of dementia and the raw, transformative experience of early motherhood.
Caroline Smith’s Bycatch (Nine Arches Press, Autumn 2025) offers a poignant portrait of care, memory, and loss. Her evocative imagery reveals the fragile beauty of aging and the delicate dance between presence and absence, described by Jane Draycott as “a remarkable journal of care and its complex narratives.”
Erica Hesketh’s In the Lily Room (Nine Arches Press, Spring 2025) confronts medical misogyny, birth trauma, and the emotional spectrum of motherhood with lyrical grace. Kim Moore praises her work for expanding our understanding of what it truly means to be a mother—capturing joy, boredom, and resilience in striking verse.