Overview

Erica Hesketh’s debut collection In the Lily Room tells a story of early motherhood. It examines a new mother’s journey through mental illness, her relationships with her body, her baby and other people, and the often surreal landscape of mothering, against a backdrop of a changing and uncertain world. A dreamlike birth sequence full of eels, foxes and floodwater empties onto a London postnatal ward, where reality sets in. Rudderless and anxious, the new mother writes notes to herself, joins support groups and tries medication. She climbs into myth and prayer, nightmare and song, criss-crossing her neighbourhood with a pram, until she starts to feel better. Hesketh's poems speak of the many things motherhood can mean, the structures it is made to fit inside. Clear-eyed and full of hard-won love, this a story of one of the most common experiences there is, told in a dazzlingly original way.

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9781916760165

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Reviews

‘In poems of great skill, daring and beauty, Hesketh somehow contains the leaky mess of new parenthood. This is for all the mothers - mother of stone, mother of ice, mother of fire, mother of dark. A stunning debut: intelligent, tender and unwaveringly true.’ -- Clare Pollard

Author Information

Erica Hesketh is a poet and editor, originally from Japan and Denmark, now based in London. Widely published in magazines and journals, she placed second in the 2022 Winchester Poetry Prize, and was commended in the 2023 Magma Poetry Competition and the 2023 Stanza Competition. She was longlisted for the 2023 National Poetry Competition. Her poetry has been commissioned by the Royal Festival Hall, Spread the Word and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. From 2016 to 2024 she was Director of the Poetry Translation Centre. She is the editor of Living in Language: International reflections for the practising poet.

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