Eyewear Publishing
Flame Ash Feather
Flame Ash Feather
Couldn't load pickup availability
Available NOW | Hardcover | Poetry/Memoir
Poet Catherine Swire has kept chickens in woods on the side of the Malvern Hills for nearly two decades. In Flame, Ash, Feather she explains how in them, she found "a model, almost, of the relationships and patterns" of our lives. Her life changed forever the day her sister died in the Lockerbie crash; suddenly unable to read, yet in her second year of an English degree at Oxford, and with everything that had felt solid now destroyed, she strove to understand the loss and the suffering. In an age when we are encouraged not to face mortality, Catherine explores starkly and honestly the "game with death".
Read The Telegraph article HERE - published April 4, 2024.
Catherine Swire
read English at Oxford and went on to postgraduate study in Canada. Her collection of poems, Soil explores the way that trauma is translated by landscape. The poems were featured this year on Radio 4’s Ramblings and at Ledbury Poetry Festival. This year Catherine will lead poetry workshops from Kent to the Highlands and she teaches young adults in Worcester.
Press for Flame Ash Feather
April 2, 2024. The Telegraph.
"I felt silenced by my father seeking justice after my sister was killed in the Lockerbie bombing"
"For the first time, Catherine Swire has felt able to voice publicly the bombing’s toll on her family." Interview by Charlotte Lytton.
May 3, 2024. Daily Mail.
"Sister of Lockerbie victim remembers life before terror attack"
"On the wall opposite their parents' bed is a portrait of Cathy Swire's big sister Flora. For the majority of Cathy's life, it has been the first thing they see in the morning and the last thing they see at night." Interview by Jenny Johnston.
April 12, 2024. Bromsgrove Advertiser.
Lockerbie bombing: sister of Flora Swire launches memoir
"A TEACHER whose sister died in the Lockerbie bombing has written a book about her trauma. Catherine Swire’s memoir Flame, Ash, Feather: A Dozen Eggs from Lockerbie launches at The Poetry House in Ledbury on Saturday, April 13." Article by Beverly Abbs.
20-26 May, 2024. The Big Issue
The life-affirming power of the chicken.
"Catherine Swire's life changed forever the day her sister was killed in the Lockerbie bombing. Her new memoir Flame, Ash, Feather: A Dozen Eggs from Lockerbie explores the deep emotional trauma of terror and loss. Here she details for Big Issue how she struggled to find the words to explain her distress... and how chickens helped her through that pain." Essay by Catherine Swire.