An Evening with Sarah Wimbush

Sarah Wimbush’s poetry journeys through myth and memory while being firmly rooted in Yorkshire. Her writing has been recognised by numerous prizes and awards. She comes from Doncaster and lives in Leeds. Sarah's Mslexia prize-winning pamphlet, Bloodlines (Seren, 2020), explores her Gypsy heritage by piecing together fragments of distant stories and scattered language. The Last Dinosaur in Doncaster (Smith Doorstop, 2021) journeys down the ginnels of Yorkshire; from the Miners’ Strike and its ramifications, to men who should have been astronauts, to no-nonsense women who get stuff done. This prize-winning pamphlet from The Poetry Business Competition celebrates the importance of belonging, in all its gritty splendour. Shelling Peas with My Grandmother in the Gorgiolands (Bloodaxe, 2022) recounts fireside tales of Gypsy life, through to pit villages and strikes, to the subliminal of the everyday – including poems about typists, pencil sharpeners and learning to drive in a Ford Capri. STRIKE (Stairwell, 2024) commemorates the 40th anniversary of the miners’ strike ‘84-85. These poems are so powerful and moving that they almost set the page alight with their anger and craft; set alongside stunning photographs they really are first drafts of a history that needs to be told. IAN McMILLAN