The metamorphoses of Liz Berry

By Michael Watts

It took an eternity to reach the poet Liz Berry. She was waiting in the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, the big slab of Victoriana clearly visible on the other side of Paradise Circus, a city-centre development. Between us sprawled a hellish chaos of road works. Birmingham blindly believes in change leading to progress, but generally prefers a demolition to an erection. Liz, patiently sipping tea in the museum’s cavernous café, had heard that the Circus would be re-named as just “Paradise”. We both hooted at that.

We were in Birmingham, where she lives with her partner and young son, to discuss “Black Country”, her debut book of poems, already in its seventh reprint. It was published only last August, won the Forward prize for best first collection and was many critics’ poetry book of 2014. Next month, at the Royal Festival Hall in London, she will be reading from her collection during National Poetry Day.