Bycatch

A moving poetic exploration of dementia, memory and the fragile boundaries of self.

A deep-sea trawler, dementia destroys all life in its path: friendships, the symbiosis of family and ultimately the self. In Bycatch, a new collection by the Ted Hughes Prize shortlisted-poet Caroline Smith, these poems ask where personhood is when memory and language are gone. They chart the faltering years of a life gradually scraped bare by dementia yet find amongst the isolation and sadness moments of epiphany and joy.