Christy Ducker is the author of four poetry books and pamphlets: Messenger (Smith Doorstop, 2017), Heroes (Smith Doorstop, 2016), Skipper (Smith Doorstop, 2015) and Armour (Smith Doorstop, 2011). Her work has won a Northern Writers’ award, a Forward prize commendation, and a selection as PBS pamphlet choice. Favourable reviews and articles about her writing have featured in the TLS, The Guardian and The Marginalian, among others. Her commissions include residencies for Port of Tyne, English Heritage and The British Lung Foundation. She currently works as a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Newcastle University.

‘Skipper is concerned with human vulnerability, and with how we keep our balance in an unstable world. In the midst of writing these poems, I had a lot of surgery which sharpened my interest in survival as a theme. There are plenty of poems about identity, health and hospitals here, but there’s also a strong historical inflection: what can survive of past lives? Skipper explores our relationship with history, and opens out into a long sequence about the Victorian lighthousekeeper, Grace Darling.