A Long Way Down by Beth Brooke
A Long Way Down' was one of two winners of the Brian Dempsey Memorial prize 2025. This is a collection of poems that defies simple definition by genre. It's about war and its effects on those who are at the front line seeing violent action, effects on the soldier's psyche, that taint his homecoming and his family relationships for the rest of his life. Beth Brooke celebrates her father's bravery and loyalty, in World War II, and empathises extraordinarily perceptively with his post-war suffering and tendency to find relief in alcohol. But this is more than a memoir and more than an expression of love and acceptance from a daughter to a father whom she has finally come to understand. In her deep investigation through his letters, reminiscences with siblings and personal memories, Brooke is also able to take the reader to the places that her father found and loved through his army service - Gaza, 80 years ago an oasis, now a devastated strip of land, home to suffering and starvation. These poems are able to speak broadly across historical and contemporary issues, as well as recounting the experiences of individuals caught up in the damage that war inflicts. Explaining the process she went through when writng ‘A Long Way Down', Beth Brooke says: "Last year, two of my siblings had a conversation about our parents, in particular about our father - his emotional distance, his perfectionism, and the way army life was always more important than family. Then when one of those siblings talked me, poems started to come. They linked arms with other poems I had already written about my childhood in Germany, Libya and Yemen. I spent months thinking about my father, picking over old photographs, looking at his army record, revisiting memories. I learned to see him differently. Writing these poems helped me to understand that he was brave, loyal but also damaged by war. I loved him. He never told us we were loved, but that didn't mean we weren't.â€
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