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.
About the Author :
Caroline Smith trained as a sculptor at Goldsmiths College. She now lives in Wembley where she works with refugees. Her previous collection, The Immigration Handbook was shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award and translated into Italian. Smith is widely published in journals and anthologies, including The Poetry Review, The Spectator and Staying Alive (Bloodaxe). Her work has been shortlisted or won prizes in the Keats/Shelley, Indigo Dreams and The Alpine International poetry competitions. She has given readings at festivals and universities around the world, including Aldeburgh, Cardiff, Ledbury, Columbia and Michigan universities. Set to music by the British Argentinian composer Silvina Milstein, her poetry has been performed by the BBC Singers. She is a 2025 Hawthornden Fellow. www.carolinesmithpoet.com
Review :
‘In Bycatch Caroline Smith has created a remarkable journal of care and its complex narratives, composed throughout with striking clarity of image and compassionate observation. These finely resonant poems show us how the worlds of capacity and apparent incapacity exist all in the same moment - her ageing parents’ house ‘like an unlocked church’, generous and vulnerable; her father’s shoe, unrecognised by him, ‘like a tugboat guiding him through the fog’; and most joyfully of all his un-anchored language ‘high up in the roof of the cloud forest/ broken free of the ground.’
'A beautiful collection. Smith's precise, unsentimental language evokes the different stages of losing a parent, all the while reminding us that heartbreak is a measure of love.'
'Caroline Smith's Bycatch is a series of meditative poems centred on the events of her father's life and the movement towards its end, all located in events and objects of the everyday evoked with total precision and attentiveness. These are poems of clear-eyed profundity, careful in every sense of the word, informed by quiet but sustained compassion. The title suggests with beautiful delicacy the way ordinary lives might seem incidental to the country's history which they constitute, described in a narrative of great precision and clarity in a marvellous evocation of place and time.'
'Bycatch is a tender dance between taking care and letting go. A vivid and most moving work which gives a glimpse into the intricacies of caring for ageing parents, the role-reversal of parent and child, as well as acknowledgement of unavoidable decline compounded by a diagnosis of dementia. Smith is masterful at painting full character portraits in poems about moments in time. The result is a book in which Smith is visited by the person who was, while visiting the person who is, continually bringing the remnants together to maintain the full picture of the whole person. A picture of deep love to slow the unravelling. Tender without sentimentality, stunning in the everyday, this is a beautiful collection I know I will read many times.'
'So much love, care, grief, and dignity is presented in this collection. By the end of Bycatch, you will gain deeper compassion and understanding for the unpredictable, creative voyage of the minds and emotions of those living with dementia, and the carers who support them. Everything and everyone will not be forgotten, but instead, preserved, remembered with love and affection.'
