Dust is a poetry pamphlet written by me and illustrated by Saffron Russell. It grew from my own experience of losing my brother to suicide and a desire to share this story to continue conversations about mental health and despair. The pamphlet was written thanks to a bursary from Raven Studios, and produced thanks to the the generosity of its crowdfunders.
All profits from Dust go to two important charities, CALM and UKSobs. We have already raised almost £550 for these charities, with more to come from future sales.
Praise for Dust
The poems in this collection exist in the liminal place in which traumatic grief places us. This negative space is expressed in the careful use of white space on the page, the gentle, delicate cut of language. These are elegant, controlled but brutal poems in which love settles as dust over the remains of loss leave the reader with the sense of time stood still, where grief is simultaneously happening in the past and the present. A beautiful collection of poems from an intelligent and talented poet.
Wendy Pratt – Spelt Magazine
Kathryn Anna Marshall’s pamphlet Dust opens with an image of weightlessness – and through these skillful and courageous poems, she examines the shockwave of grief experienced by families when a loved one dies by suicide, leaving the foundations of their lives irrevocably uprooted. Here, we encounter the “little sister” who “looks to the sky / and wonders / about gravitational / collapse”, navigate the memories of the before and the after, and hear the deep, resounding heart-song of loss.
Jane Commane – Nine Arches Press
These are poems of love and loss, where ‘dust’ not only embodies death but something tangible – the weight of grief itself, which ‘settles like ash / gritty teeth chalk tongue/swallow / it down’.
Kathryn Anna Marshall writes beautifully and with candour on survival and trauma. The world she conjures is lit with pain and confusion, the realm of those left behind. Details are steeped in importance, ‘at twelve minutes past eight / they cremated you’; dreams and possessions stir memories, regrets; and with heart ache comes harsh clichés, ‘You learn legs do go / from beneath’. Yet hope belongs to the living, and together, these tender, potent elegies are a songbook to the ‘soft promise’ of spring.
Ian Humphreys
Dust is a poignant pamphlet that bravely navigates grief and the immeasurable loss felt after Marshall’s brother took his own life. These heartfelt and powerful poems try to explain the thought process and steps to recovery that she undertook after such personal trauma. But they also encourage us to look out for, and engage with, one another more to prevent such tragedies happening again elsewhere.
Lewis Wyn Davies
You can follow the journey of Dust, from concept through to publication on my blog.
Crowdfunders for Dust
Martin Harrison
Carlota Marshall
Gill Ford
Emma Knights
Katherine Ash
June Vacher
Dawn Godfrey
Sarah Flaherty
Rosemary Sykes
Bob Marshall
Kat Welding
Hannah Bufton
Alice Whitehead
Jane Commane
Mark Urey
Dianna & Mark
Joanne Phillips
Cherry Doyle
Natalie Mayfield
Sian Watson
Matt Dixon
Elaine Lawson
Derryck Strachan
Lynn Valentine
Jo Clarke
Amanda Smith
Steve Marshall
Maggie Cameron
Angela Dempster
Joanna Ingleby
Heidi Johnson
Steve Coleman
Susan Aspell
David Raymont
Carolyn Healy
Jenine Petley
Amanda Smith
Lewis Davies
Claire Pennell
Thank you all so much
Kathryn Anna Marshall 