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The Republic of Motherhood

A stirring new gathering of poems about motherhood from award-winning poet, Liz Berry (author of Black Country)

An electrifying collection of poems that makes your heart sing

Alongside the tender, heart-breaking moments, there's humour and a visceral energy. These poems transport you, there's something primal in their intimacy... Berry doesn't hold anything back with this collection, its beauty lies in her willingness to embrace the unspoken, the hidden...the wisdom and insight within its pages to be passed around amongst those finding their way into their new identity

Sure to be a comfort to many new mothers, a salve to the soul during a time of huge change

The Republic of Motherhood gives us poems of the greatest importance... This is writing to carry round with you, a pamphlet to open in a schoolroom, a hospital, on a train, in a street, and share its words, its great life and its love, with everyone you can

There was an electric charge to this pamphlet... It’s a pamphlet of love in darkness, full of poems which have something of the holy relic about them

The Republic of Motherhood is a brilliant reflection of what it's like to become a mum and those first exhausting months

Rae Howells, author of THE LANGUAGE OF BEES

A beautifully presented pamphlet of poems about becoming a mother

*'The Republic of Motherhood' Winner of the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem* 
 
‘I crossed the border into the Republic of Motherhood 
and found it a queendom, a wild queendom.’ 
 
In this bold and resonant gathering of poems, Liz Berry turns her distinctive voice to the transformative experience of new motherhood. Her poems sing the body electric, from the joy and anguish of becoming a mother, through its darkest hours to its brightest days. With honesty and unabashed beauty, they bear witness to that most tender of times – when a new life arrives, and everything changes.

Black Country

The incandescent debut from Liz Berry. Winner of the Forward Prize Best First Collection 2014, and a Poetry Book Society Recommendation.

Black Country is an extraordinary debut...rooted in place. When you close the book, you can still see the Black Country in your mind's eye, as if all the poems in it were coming together to form a continuous landscape, a single yet varied view. These poems need to be studied slowly yet there is, as one reads on, a sense of gathering speed, a flightiness, a readiness to soar... She writes, in the best sense, on a wing and a prayer. What marks out this writing is its sparing but assured use of Midlands dialect. This is writing of warmth, maturity and intermittent eroticism. Liz Berry knows her own flight-path, that is for sure.

Superb... a sooty, soaring hymn to her native West Midlands, scattered with words of dialect that light up the lines like lamps. Expect to hear a great deal more from her in years to come.

This is as writer I'm thrilled to discover -- someone who takes pride in the Midlands... turning ordinariness into something direct, tender and beautiful.

A singularly impressive book from a talented writer, and like all the best poetry, begs to be read aloud

Liz Berry is an extraordinary poet: passionate, precise, moving and deeply real. The voice and heat of the Black Country are here, the old tenderness and the complex strands of identity, the humour and the music.

These are poems of great vitality and charm. Seasoned with the dialect of Liz Berry’s home territory, but with a linguistic and lyric freshness independent of that, they offer nourishment – right bostin fittle, in fact – to readers hungry for the real thing.

Ecstatic, quicksilver poems, ablaze with originality, curiosity and a passion for words.

Berry’s nostalgic, dramatic and dialect-sprinkled poems bring a dream-like West Midlands into English verse

Liz Berry makes you look at the world differently. Her book is a real appreciation of a place that’s not often appreciated. She is a fresh, exciting and distinctive new voice. Her work is that rare thing, a collection that leaves you feeling full of real optimism and hope

Berry seems, excitingly, to be several poets in one. [She] specializes in the fabulous… This energy lifts her book out of the usual

Packed with intelligence, sharp observation and a clever innocence... It marks the emergence of a compelling new voice – one that will continue to grow in range and authority

I have wondered why the wit, warmth and energy of the West Midlands had no voice amongst the younger English poets. Now it has. Liz Berry is the Black Country’s shining daughter.

What makes Berry an uplifting arrival is her rampant imagination and fully formed conceits

An utterly new voice, fresh, soaring, thrilling, she is one of those rare poets that make you want to wolf the book down and come back for more… A stunning debut

It is unusual for a young poet to have such a developed sense of how questions of voice, identity, place and readership can be resolved in poetry

An amazing debut that signals great things to come in the future from this original, proud poet

Utterly beautiful poems of being in love, being a woman and being free. She is destined to be a star in the cosmos of poetry!

Liz Berry has an ability to bring the Black Country dialect to life with her poems

WINNER OF THE FORWARD PRIZE BEST FIRST COLLECTION 2014 
 
*PBS Recommendation 2014* 
 
‘When I became a bird, Lord, nothing could not stop me…’ 
 
In Black Country, Liz Berry takes flight: to Wrens Nest, Gosty Hill, Tipton-on-Cut; to the places of home. The poems move from the magic of childhood – bostin fittle at Nanny’s, summers before school – into deeper, darker territory: sensual love, enchanted weddings, and the promise of new life. 
 
In Berry’s hands, the ordinary is transformed: her characters shift shapes, her eye is unusual, her ear attuned to the sounds of the Black Country, with ‘vowels ferrous as nails, consonants / you could lick the coal from.’ Ablaze with energy and full of the rich dialect of the West Midlands, this is an incandescent debut from a poet of dazzling talent and verve.

Liz Berry

One of the outstanding books of this year... Although this is a historical tale its resonance is timeless

A story that is not only heartbreaking but also, essentially, true ... [The Home Child] is a profound act of witness to a long injustice, and a beautifully crafted conjuring of a life lived as truly as possible

Berry's novel in verse is based on an aunt she never met... It's vivid, compassionate and, a century after her forced migration, makes little Eliza Showell's voice heard at last

Liz Berry has given the world another ground-breaking collection of poems. These verses are sensitive and tender, yet the language is real and unflinching

An extraordinary work of imagination . . . Poetic virtuosity is combined with novelistic story-telling as we follow the unfolding fate of Eliza Showell . . . An exquisite book

Only Liz Berry could write such raw and staggeringly beautiful poems

'Magnificent . . . She takes us on a heartbreaking journey, and she persuades us to examine our own past, whoever we are.'

One of the most anticipated second collections of the decade... Enchanting... Berry combines the historical and the personal, the local and international, weaving them into a story that has its own accumulating emotional force

A triumph. A novel in verse, an elegy, a profound act of witness . . . Eliza is brought to such tangible and complex life I feel as though I've met her

'One of my favourite books of all time. Every collection by Liz Berry is a treasure, but this one struck even deeper. It has universal reach to the ongoing exploitation of earth's poor.

A haunting, deeply compelling narrative, that holds the reader tight to the animal anchor of the natural world, and speaks in the unique idiolect of its own genealogy

The Home Child is so beautiful . . . [Liz] honours Home Children & with a eerie magic ventriloquises her ancestor Eliza Showell

'A remarkable collection . . . A thought-provoking weave of fact and imagination . . . It describes in her own words how her life is transformed, and in doing so, transforms ours'

Deeply moving. A graceful, delicate book, stunning in its emotional depth... I know I'll return to it many times in the future

Megan Hunter, author of THE END WE START FROM

There is something of Hardy's heartbreak note to these poems . . . The Home Child is both blues and rhapsody; Liz Berry's musicality and gift for the telling image matched by her sensitivity to and love for her subject.

Doireann Ní Ghríofa, author of A Ghost in the Throat

'Liz Berry's poetry is spell-work . . . Her voice carves creatures out of words, and sets them dancing.'

Liz Berry ... sings of love, loss, grief, work, wonder, hope. To say I love this, the quiet power of it, would understate

'Liz Berry's poems are captivating and charged with her characteristically rich and sensuous Black Country language. The Home Child brings to light the devastating history of forced child migration in the service of Empire and is a deeply moving tribute to the author's great aunt. This is a book that should be on the curriculum'

The Home Child is one of my favourite books of all time. Every collection by Liz Berry is a treasure, but this one struck even deeper. The language is exquisite, every poem pitch perfect and brimming with tenderness; if there is rage in the heartbreaking story, the poetry breaks through it and transforms with love. And although the theme is personal, about a great aunt, this collection resonates with all who are exploited, abused, exiled and dispossessed. It has universal reach to the ongoing exploitation of earth's poor.

The Home Child is a triumph. A novel in verse, an elegy, a profound act of witness, with the poet's enviable eye for image and detail. And like the best works of art and acts of witness it conveys dignity, a subtle and defiant humanity that rescues the forgotten, the wronged and the neglected from memory. It's a deep statement on the power and responsibility of writing, and I found it frequently moving, needfully shocking, and visionary and life-affirming in its metaphors. Eliza is brought to such tangible and complex life I feel as though I've met her.

'In The Home Child Liz Berry has produced a magnificent book that is a time machine, a memory-engine, and a site for poetic narrative experiments. She takes us on a heartbreaking journey in a voice grown in midland soil and thrown across the world, and she persuades us to examine our own past, whoever we are.'

'Great poetry has the power to bear witness. It's job, in part, is to pay attention and in so doing redeem the unremembered, the overlooked and the disregarded. The Home Child is a remarkable collection which tracks the life of a young girl sent from poverty in Birmingham into indentured work in Cape Breton. All but forgotten, she never returns home. This is poetry designed to rescue a girl from history - a thought-provoking weave of fact and imagination which tracks her as she adapts to this new world. It describes in her own words how her life is transformed, and in doing so, transforms ours.'

Only Liz Berry could write such raw and staggeringly beautiful poems, and bring such necessary, tender witness to the atrocities of child emigration. The reader is blown open to her home-child's world: cold skies, grief, a mother's love singing through the dark. This sequence broke my heart. Now little Eliza nests in its pieces.

There is something of Hardy's heartbreak note to these poems, and Eliza shares some of his great heroines' tragic virtue. The Home Child is both blues and rhapsody; Liz Berry's musicality and gift for the telling image matched by her sensitivity to and love for her subject. "Bright inspite everything", Eliza is given her living name despite having been born in the "wrong soil, worst season". Berry is generous enough in her vision and gifted enough in her phrasemaking to remind us Eliza's is neither an isolated, nor an historic, story but one which, like the snow of Marble Mountain, "will never stop falling./Somewhere, somewhere we choose not to look".

Liz Berry has given the world another ground-breaking collection of poems. These verses are sensitive and tender, yet the language is real and unflinching. 
 
These poems should remind us that children have been sent across borders for many years. Liz is delicately articulating how we are still living in our history. The only thing that has changed is the direction of travel. 
 
These are beautiful poems that are full of compassion, inspired by a moment in our history that lacked compassion. Liz Berry can do anything with words.

These poems are as alive as fire, leaping from the page with vividness and warmth, their embers glimmering in the mind long after the book has ended. Deeply moving, unforgettable.

It sat in my chest, this book, my heart in my mouth. Here is hardship with all its indignities and historic wrongs. But also the resistant, insistent vernacular of survival. In such a range of voices, from state institution to the imaginary of a child, Liz Berry exposes the roots of poverty, violence, empire, all masquerading under the name of 'home'. Seeded from a difficult past, The Home Child is an astonishing work of recognition and redress.

The Home Child is so beautiful . . . [Liz] honours Home Children & with a eerie magic ventriloquises her ancestor Eliza Showell [. . .] I'm very moved by the story Liz has created so that Eliza can speak & the way language and imagery is used across and within the poems to thread the story together

'Liz Berry's poetry is spell-work, so deeply rooted in her love of language. Her voice carves creatures out of words, and sets them dancing'

Liz Berry's The Home Child is an extraordinary work of imagination, conjuring the little-known stories of orphan children cast away from Britain to Canada. Poetic virtuosity is combined with novelistic story-telling as we follow the unfolding fate of Eliza Showell, an orphan girl from 'The Fiery Holes' of the Black Country, to the distant and hostile Marble Mountain. Berry's writing is beautifully in tune with childhood longing and fear, and the burning desire to love and belong. An exquisite book.

Liz Berry achieves a fusion of poetry and fiction as gripping as any thriller... Inspired by the true story of her great aunt...this compelling novel in verse is a moving portrait of a girl who will never see her family again

A tour de force... Beautifully crafted and quietly devastating, The Home Child is a masterpiece

Deeply poignant, the words through The Home Child seem cut into each page and defy you to read them at speed

A wonderfully realised novel in verse

[With] exquisite storytelling and earthy lyricism as Liz Berry reimagines the life of her great aunt Eliza Showell

The Home Child… is consistently impressive… What distinguishes this book is not just its form but its approach

*WINNER OF THE WRITERS' PRIZE - BOOK OF THE YEAR* 
 
Inspired by a true story, The Home Child is a beautiful novel-in-verse about a child far from home 
 
&lsquo;Ground-breaking&rsquo; Benjamin Zephaniah 
&lsquo;Beautifully crafted&rsquo; Guardian 
&lsquo;Extraordinary&rsquo; Hannah Lowe 
 
In 1908, Eliza Showell, twelve years old and newly orphaned, boards a ship that will carry her from the slums of the Black Country to rural Nova Scotia. She will never return or see her family again. 
 
With nothing to call her own, the wild beauty of her surroundings is the only solace Eliza has &ndash; until another Home Child, a boy, arrives at the farm and changes everything. 
 
Inspired by the true story of Liz Berry&rsquo;s great aunt, this spellbinding novel in verse is an exquisite portrait of a girl far from home. 
 
&lsquo;One of the outstanding books of this year. Although this is a historical tale its resonance is timeless&rsquo; Sunday Times 
 
&lsquo;Deeply moving. A graceful, delicate book, stunning in its emotional depth... I know I'll return to it many times in the future&rsquo; Megan Hunter, author of The End We Start From

Liz Berry

Praise for The Home Child

One of the outstanding books of this year... Although this is a historical tale its resonance is timeless

A story that is not only heartbreaking but also, essentially, true ... [The Home Child] is a profound act of witness to a long injustice, and a beautifully crafted conjuring of a life liv ...

Berry's novel in verse is based on an aunt she never met... It's vivid, compassionate and, a century after her forced migration, makes little Eliza Showell's voice heard at last

One of the outstanding books of this year... Although this is a historical tale its resonance is timeless

A story that is not only heartbreaking but also, essentially, true ... [The Home Child] is a profound act of witness to a long injustice, and a beautifully crafted conjuring of a life liv ...

Berry's novel in verse is based on an aunt she never met... It's vivid, compassionate and, a century after her forced migration, makes little Eliza Showell's voice heard at last

One of the outstanding books of this year... Although this is a historical tale its resonance is timeless

A story that is not only heartbreaking but also, essentially, true ... [The Home Child] is a profound act of witness to a long injustice, and a beautifully crafted conjuring of a life liv ...

Berry's novel in verse is based on an aunt she never met... It's vivid, compassionate and, a century after her forced migration, makes little Eliza Showell's voice heard at last

Books by Liz Berry

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