Glory Days

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Selected reviews of Glory Days:
‘Kerry Darbishire here collaborates with fellow Cumbrian resident, Kelly Davis… While smiling at memories provoked by both sets of poems, it was two Kelly Davis poems that stood out for me. Her poignant Calling Them In and The Girl Within – “…Once she was loved. / Not with the measured love that endures / but the gasping, choking love / that stops the heart – and stops the clock”… A time machine this: open it to step into your own memories.’ Sam Smith, The Journal
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‘The poems bounce off one another and are painfully honest, nostalgic, at times humorous and invariably compassionate. […] I found particularly poignant, lines about menopause and ageing. ‘Nature urges us to spend the last sweetness of our bodies / when the world wishes we would go quietly’. Yes, many women will recognise the notion that society wants us to be invisible (The Change).’ Susan Jane Sims, Second Light Live
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‘I love the excoriating honesty of Kelly’s work, set against the quiet intensity of Kerry’s. These women have been there, as we have, and their lives catch us unawares. Both are such distinct and individual voices, yet together their power is more than the sum of their parts. This collection is a hymn, a paean, to the passion and thrust of life, with all its joys and sadness.’ Angela Locke

‘Glory Days is an exploration, in poetry, of the different phases of a woman’s life. Kelly Davis and Kerry Darbishire write about the experience of growing up female and the different roles and expectations girls have to face up to. At the centre of the collection is a series of moving poems about the relationships of mothers and daughters. These poems are both intimate and powerful.’  Kathleen Jones

‘Two poets explore their lives from childhood right through to their own motherhood, and then the problem of looking after ageing parents. Together the poems make a highly poignant collection, marked above all by striking honesty.’  Gill McEvoy

Kelly Davis lives in Maryport and works as a freelance editor. Her poetry has been widely anthologised and published in magazines such as Mslexia, Magma, London Grip and Shooter. In 2021 she came second in the Borderlines Poetry Competition and was longlisted for the international Erbacce Press Poetry Competition. She has twice been shortlisted for the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award and she appears in the Best New British and Irish Poets 2019–2021 anthology (Black Spring Press). In 2021, she collaborated with Kerry Darbishire on their poetry pamphlet Glory Days (Hen Run). www.kellydavis.co.uk