Burning Bright

Winner of the 2021 Saboteur Award in the best poetry pamphlet category – The Weight of Snow – published by Maytree Press at the end of February 2021 acknowledges a history of grief in my own family that started when my mother’s sister, Joan, was killed by a lorry at the age of 10.

This 1950s childhood photograph shows my mum, her younger brother Joe, and younger sister, Joan (on the right).

Joan’s death on 20th January 1954 was the beginning of a series of tragedies including the early death of her mother, Ada, a grandmother I never knew. Although poetry does not require biography or factual evidence to establish its truths, this small collection has been very important to me. It is a way of setting down a memorial, naming the dead who are so important to us – those who may never be known without such dedications of art and love.