TALK: The Home Child, with Liz Berry

The Home Child with Liz Berry
At 7pm-8pm on Thursday 1st May
In person tickets from £18. View online [Zoom] tickets £10. Click here to purchase.

Join award-winning poet Liz Berry for an evening of readings based around her latest book, The Home Child. Called ‘ground-breaking’ by Benjamin Zephaniah, The Home Child is inspired by the life of Liz’s aunt and tells the story of Eliza Showell, sent to Canada for a ‘better life’ in 1908.

As well as weaving poems with Eliza’s story, Liz – whose poems are known and loved for their use of vernacular language – will think about the use of regional or ‘home’ language, particularly how using such language vividly conjures story and emotion. In previous performances, audience questions have led to deep and moving discussions about family histories, social justice, looked-after children, how writing might play a role as witness or agent of change, and (of course) love.

This is sure to be an evening full of poetry and warm discussion – not to be missed!

Liz Berry is an award-winning poet and author of the critically acclaimed collections Black Country (Chatto, 2014); The Republic of Motherhood (Chatto, 2018); The Dereliction (Hercules Editions, 2021) a collaboration with artist Tom Hicks; and most recently The Home Child (Chatto, 2023), a novel in verse.

Liz’s work, described as “a sooty soaring hymn to her native West Midlands” (The Guardian), celebrates the landscape, history and dialect of the region. Liz has received the Somerset Maugham Award, Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, Eric Gregory Award and two Forward Prizes. Her poem ‘Homing’, a love poem for the language of the Black Country, is part of the GCSE English syllabus. Liz is a patron of Writing West Midlands and holds an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Wolverhampton for services to literature. 

--