Bycatch E-Book

Caroline Smith

• Herausgeber: Nine Arches Press
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 45

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

In Bycatch, a new collection by the Ted Hughes Prize shortlisted-poet Caroline Smith, the poems ask where personhood is when memory and language are gone. They capture the faltering years of a life gradually scraped bare by the deep-sea trawler of dementia – yet find amongst the isolation and sadness, moments also of clarity, epiphany and love. Whilst these poems chart deep waters, they remind us also of the enduring and miraculous bond between those who have known each other for a lifetime. With grace and often with humour, Smith unravels the intricate nature of care, the symbiosis of family, and ultimately the sense of self held in the memories and personal histories of her own parents. It is in the swell of the wave, as ageing and loss threaten to engulf even the words, these extraordinary poems remain tender, unforgettable and salt-sharp.

Leseprobe

Bycatch

Bycatch

Caroline Smith

ISBN: 978-1-916760-28-8

eISBN: 978-1-916760-29-5

Copyright © Caroline Smith, 2025.

Cover artwork: ‘Fishers of Men’ © Elizabeth Morris.

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, recorded or mechanical, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Caroline Smith has asserted her right under Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

First published October 2025 by:

Nine Arches Press

Studio 221, Zellig

Gibb Street, Deritend

Birmingham

B9 4AU

United Kingdom

www.ninearchespress.com

Printed in the United Kingdom on recycled paper by: Imprint Digital

Nine Arches Press is supported using public funding by Arts Council England.

To my sister Hilary and brother Justin:

for all the hours we shared caring for our parents.

Contents

I. Removal

Noah

Path

Removal

Blazer

Muster

Last Stand

Lemon Tea

Shed

The Ring

II. Taking Leave

Seeds

Links

Last Vaudeville

Taking Leave

Listening

Coda

Chrism

Shoes

Twin Tub

Breath

III. Archaeology

Late

Bike

Archaeology

Evacuees

Woolwich Ferry

Hephaestus the Smith

Ellen Maud Smith

Southend-on-Sea

IV. Protest

Visiting

Beds

Disorientation

Shower

The Multiverse

Bibs

Protest

Peas

Printer

Gift

Changing the Bed

Walking Stick

Mealtimes

Transfiguration

Plums

Ocean World

Flowers

V. Hope

The Memory Game

White Out

Care Assessment

Handkerchiefs

Dying

Dark

Bird Food

Care System

Bells

Hope

Snail

Batteries

Resistance

VI. Grace

In Decline

Frame

Metaphor

Forest Canopy

Grace

Pigeon

Bycatch

Sketch

Sponsored Walks

Lane

Installation

Elegy

Acknowledgements

Thanks

About the author and this book

Dedication

I lost a pound note

I’d been given as a child

and you gave me half back,

to teach me to be careful

but to mitigate my loss.

When you were old

but could still drive,

and I locked myself out,

you came half the distance

to bring me your key.

As pieces of you are lost

one by one, and the parts

of this book build into a whole.

I give you back

an approximation of your life

to meet you half way.

I.

Removal

Noah

I chart my parents’ decline

by how far the answer machine gets

before one of them reaches the phone.

Tonight,

the whole recording plays through

and they do not answer.

I imagine it ringing

in the dusk of their living room,

newspaper spread out,

pages divided up between them.

His head is back in the chair,

mouth ajar, feet turned out on the stool.

She will be dozing

on her side on the sofa

knees up, hands folded under her face,

crossword half-finished next to her.

They’ll fumble under the paper for the handset,

befuddled at having slept into evening.

The distances they could walk

just a few months ago,

are now an ocean for them to cross.

And I am Noah, waiting for their call back.

I’ve sent out a dove to find land.

One day it won’t return.

Path

The house is testing them.

Their strategies for survival

becoming visible: pliers left out –

to peel back yoghurt pot lids.

We found my father

climbing the steep stairs,

dog lead clipped, one end to his belt,

the other to the handrail.

Cushions arranged over food-stained seats.

And now as I swivel round

the heavy ring on their back door,

I stoop into the deep cold

of an unlocked church.

I shovel a thick fleece of ash

from the hearth and tramp out

in the icy blue of a still evening

in search of logs.

It’s dark when I leave them

wrapped up before a fire.

As I make it down the path

resolving to phone the estate agent,

I look back across

the white hostile ground

to the strip of light under their door –

and the two pairs of shoes

placed neatly outside.

Removal

Landlords are shifting out old tenants.

It’s the season of mattresses.

Checked, stained,

they are dumped in the road overnight.

Cramped in half,

their split seams erupt yellow foam

like crops of toadstools

under this grey wash

of a Middlesex autumn sky.

A piece of dark cloth is tacked to the window

of the maisonette my pregnant friend

is viewing to buy – her first home.

The tenant has been issued a Section 21

and won’t answer the door,

so we can only get access

now the owner’s swept in to open up.

The tenant follows us from room to room

leaning her cheek against the door frame,

watching. It’s the same stare

I saw on my father’s ivory face.

I was digging up plants from his garden,

he’d agreed I could,

after finally accepting

he had to move.

I thought he was asleep,

but he’d followed me out

shuffling slowly after me.

He stood balancing with his two sticks,

just watching at a distance

from the middle of the path.

Blazer

Foremost in his wardrobe now, the black tie –

already worn three times this month.

He rises in the early morning.

It takes him an hour these days to get ready.

Stiffeners flick from his collar and spin across the room.

He bends slowly to pick them up.

Today he is dressing for his old colleague,

in the ancient blazer with the brass anchor buttons,

the one he bought himself with his first pay rise.

It flaps loosely, slipping off one shoulder.

He’s searching the pockets for the letter