Disappearances

Kathleen Bell grew up on the ninth floor of a well-designed council block with “the best views in London” but for the past thirty years has made her home in the East Midlands. She has worked as a dog-walker, legal proofreader, editor, secretary, receptionist, navigated the benefits system, and taught English and Creative Writing at De Montfort University. She has published two poetry pamphlets: at the memory exchange (Oystercatcher, 2014) shortlisted in the Saboteur awards, and Do You Know How Kind I Am (Leafe Press, 2021), a twenty poem sequence exploring responses to lockdown and Covid-19 restrictions. Disappearances, which features an astonishing variety of verse forms and voices, from mediaeval times to the present day, is her first full-length collection.