Beda Higgins
Ourselves
ISBN 978-1-912876-42-6
Paperback
54 pages
£9.50 +P&P
THE AUTHOR
Beda Higgins is a multi-published and award winning author and poet. She has two short story collections published: ‘Chameleon’ was a Read Regional Recommendation and ‘Little Crackers’, which includes a first prize winning Mslexia short story, was longlisted for the Frank O’ Connor Award. Both were longlisted for the Edgehill Prize. Beda is a general and psychiatric nurse, and is a recipient of two Queen’s Nursing Institute Awards.
“The nurse-poet has a particular point of view: investigating everyday sadness with a nursing eye and observing our brokenness with the heart of a poet. This collection of poems startles, challenges, consoles. Part recognition of human fragility, part celebration of our bloody-minded persistence, Beda Higgins can skewer your heart even as she holds it safe. Wonderful.”
Kath Mannix
“A stunning collection. I loved the poems about nursing. It is the year to explore links between poetry and medicine and Higgins does it so well. There are poems here about nurse-training, about cancer and caring for the dying but also wonderful poems about anorexia, motherhood, even domestic violence. Beautiful. Highly recommended.”
Carole Bromley
JOINT WINNER GEOFF STEVENS MEMORIAL POETRY PRIZE 2020
“Beda Higgins’ debut collection is pulsing with life. These accomplished poems of hospital wards, loss and the compensations of love are told with clear-sightedness and compassion. Partly inspired by a career in nursing, ‘Ourselves’ brings us the everyday in all its enormity, mundanity and beauty in poems that will resonate widely.” ~ Anna Woodford