After the Rites and Sandwiches
Description
Centred on a sudden accidental death - its shocking actuality, the aftermath, the admin - Kathy Pimlott's third pamphlet is an honest, lyrical and nuanced journey through the complexity of bereavement.
As the world around her continues on - moths remain attracted to lights, Christmas comes and goes - Pimlott lives with the irreplaceable absence that follows the loss of a partner. Amid the pain and emotion is a streak of wry humour at the mundanity of settling affairs and a powerfully personal trajectory of moving through grief rather than moving on.
Across poems that take stock of the things people leave behind and the sometimes-painful memories of a long and textured marriage, After the rites and sandwiches tracks the rollercoaster of grief, guilt and regret without losing sight of the enduring salve of love.
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Pimlott's collection, the small manoeuvres, was published by Verve Poetry Press in 2022 and she has two pamphlets with the Emma Press: Elastic Glue¿ (2019) and Goose Fair Night (2016). She has been published widely in magazines, online and anthologies.
Her poems have been longlisted, shortlisted and placed in competitions including Magma's Editors' Prize (2019); the Poetry Archive's WordView 2020 Collection; the National Poetry Prize (2023), the Rialto Nature and Place Prize (2023) and the Buzzwords Competition (2023). She leads workshops in-person and online.
¿¿Pimlott was born and raised in Nottingham but has spent her adult life in London, the last 45+ years in Covent Garden, specifically Seven Dials, home of the broadsheet and the ballad. She has been a social worker and community activist, and worked on a political and financial risk journal, in arts television and artist development. She currently earns her living as the administrator of a charitable trust which undertakes community-led public realm projects.
