Kerry Darbishire & Kelly Davis: Poetry Reading

Friday 26th June, 7.00pm

Cakes & Ale Café, Carlisle

Join Bookends for an evening of poetry as Kerry Darbishire and Kelly Davis read from their latest collections.

Kerry Darbishire was raised in a wooden house by the River Brathay at the foot of the Langdale valley. She spent her childhood exploring her surroundings especially the river and the nearby woodland. This has been the source for most of her writings. She will read from River Talk (which won the Wordsworth Prize for Literature and Poetry in the Lakeland Book of the Year Awards 2025) and her latest poetry pamphlet What Love Is (Hedgehog Poetry 2026).

Kelly Davis grew up in London and moved to Maryport in 1989, where she works from home as a freelance editor. Her poems have been published in Mslexia, Magma and London Grip, and she has three times been shortlisted for the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award. She collaborated with Kerry Darbishire on their pamphlet Glory Days (Grey Hen Press, 2021) and her first solo collection, The Lost Art of Ironing, was published in 2024. She will be reading from her latest collection Portrait of My Father as a Snail (Palewell Press 2026).

‘Kerry has written lines you’ll remember long after you’ve read the poems’ Kathleen Jones

‘With a gaze that is intimate and exacting, Davis traces the slow and patient work of understanding’ Dr Kim Moore

PLEASE NOTE: Your order confirmation will act as your e-ticket and is all you require to access the event.

On the night we will also have a list of all people who have purchased tickets online and in the shop.