Last Custodian

Stephen Lightbown is a Blackburn born, Bristol based poet and disability rights champion. Paralysed following an accident in 1996 when he was 16 Stephen uses his poems to give a voice to his disability. He has spoken at events across the UK and at festivals such as Shambala, Womad, Verve Poetry Festival and Lyra Bristol Poetry Festival. In addition, Stephen has read internationally in San Antonio, Texas. His poems have been widely anthologised and The Last Custodian is Stephen’s second poetry collection.

A compelling and formally inventive collection of poems that is also a sweeping story, Stephen Lightbown's The Last Custodian chronicles crisis, and questions our ideas of memory, survival. When towns become "laden crematoriums," when tragedy takes everything, at that last moment, last stand: there is still a music. "I have to hear a sound," writes the poet, "even if it's played / to photographs". Coming as it does, in this moment of global pandemic, THE LAST CUSTODIAN will touch many a reader with its unrelenting, questioning, echoing voice. A moving, inimitable book. --Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic and Dancing in Odessa