Books / Poetry
Second book by Bristol poet set in post-apocalyptic world
Stephen Lightbown laughs as he remembers being covered in red dust to promote his second collection of poetry, The Last Custodian, which sees a wheelchair-bound protagonist navigate a post-apocalyptic world in which they think they are the only survivor.
“It took hours to get it all off!” says the Blackburn-born and now Bristol-based poet.
The book came about after a five-minute “free-write” at a poetry festival saw Stephen write a poem about someone hiding from post-apocalyptic dust.
After sharing the piece on Instagram, he was encouraged to write more and two years later, within a post-pandemic world, it has turned into a book
Hear Stephen talk more about The Last Custodian in the latest Bristol24/7 Behind the Headlines podcast:
Stephen admits that The Last Custodian is “niche upon niche upon niche”: a book of poems featuring a wheelchair user in a post-apocalyptic world.
“But as a whole it comes together I think. That actually was what made me want to write it.
I’m a big lover of films. I watch any kind of sci-fi film or dystopian film. There’s never really many central characters with disabilities and those that are tend not to not make it very far.
“I’ve often wondered why that is… there’s no reason why somebody couldn’t survive an apocalypse.
“In my head, everybody who’s in this book has a disability. I don’t write about that but that partly was influenced by the pandemic.
“I can’t speak for everyone with a disability but the people who I have spoken to often feel like they’re living in a dystopia, things are out of reach, services aren’t the same, people may be hidden out of view of society, you feel like that if you’ve got a disability.”
Stephen says that he wanted to “flip” the notion that people with disabilities had been told to stay inside.
“What happened if only people with disabilities thrived? What if they were the only ones who were allowed outside? Or the only people on the outside?
“And therefore, if the only people you were comparing yourself to are people who look and feel like you, have the same abilities as you, then actually disability doesn’t exist anymore.”
Stephen Lightbown previously worked for the NHS. The Last Custodian begins in Bristol before the protagonist pushes his chair across the south of England – photo: Adele Mary Reed
Stephen Lightbown will be reading The Last Custodian cover-to-cover on Instagram Live at 7pm from Monday to Friday. Watch along via @spokeandpencil
Main photo: James Lightbown
Read more: My Bristol Favourites: Stephen Lightbown
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