We broke with our usual format to launch Patricia Debney’s newest collection, Baby. After a quick introduction by Nancy Garfield, Patricia treated us to a reading of several poems from the collection. Delivered with Patricia’s eloquent phrasings, the poems explore the intimate and complex dynamic between an adult child and an ailing parent with brutal, and sometimes poignant, honesty.

The collection, which she told us was written over the course of two weeks with one year in between, came about when a health crisis of her mother’s required Patricia to make two emergency visits to the U.S. It was then that Patricia first realised how much both of their lives had been tied up with illness. Arranged into three sections, the collection includes reflections on her childhood, dream sequences and poised confessionals, all addressed to the central figure of you, Patricia’s mother.

Baby is available for £8.99 from Licorice Fish Books.