Book Launch: Elizabeth Cook: Tumbling

I thought I would still be the me
that I was when you lived when
you died. I could not then see
that your death would bereave
me not only of you but of me.

The poems in Tumbling are written from loss — of partner, friend and family. There is grief but also curiosity and openness to the sometimes surprising ways in which these essential relationships persist and change. The poems are written with Cook’s characteristic precision and intensity — never heavy and with humour often breaking through.

Readings from Michael Stephenson and Elizabeth Cook.
Music from The Self-Righteous Brothers.

Elizabeth Cook was brought up in Dorset, lived in Suffolk with her late partner and now lives in East London. Her poetry includes two collections from Worple Press (Bowl and When I Kiss the Sky) and a pamphlet (The Sound of the Rain) from The Garlic Press. Her fiction includes Achilles (Methuen) and Lux (Scribe). She has taught in universities, prisons and a Franciscan friary and has written the libretto for a Passion oratorio.

‘The painfully touching poems of grief and mourning in Elizabeth Cook’s Tumbling, are so necessary, so luminous that they comfort and sustain us.’
MICHAEL LASKEY

Mariscat is now one of the longest-running self-funded small presses in Scotland. The ‘jewel in the Scottish poetry crown’ (Ian McMillan), Mariscat has twice won the Michael Marks Publishers’ Award (2023 & 2015). The press is known for its tastefully designed publications and a quality backlist which includes work by figures such as Douglas Dunn, Diana Hendry, Stewart Conn, Jackie Kay and Michael Longley, as well as many publications by Edwin Morgan, Whyte’s friend for over 30 years.