An Indelible Evening with Dr. Kimberly Dark and Dr. Lucy Aphramor
Motherlode: Poetry, Care and the Stories We Live By
An Indelible Evening with Dr. Kimberly Dark and Dr. Lucy Aphramor
What happens to the stories we tell about love, family and ourselves when the relationships that shaped them begin to change?
In this Indelible Evenings conversation, writer, sociologist and storyteller Dr. Kimberly Dark joins poet and dietitian-researcher Dr. Lucy Aphramor for an evening of poetry, reading and conversation inspired by Dark’s new collection, Motherlode.
Through readings from the book, Dark and Aphramor will explore mother–daughter relationships, dementia, care, memory, intimacy and the complicated forms love can take as familiar roles begin to shift. Their conversation will also consider poetry as a way of knowing: how the poetic form can hold contradiction, make space for what resists easy explanation, and allow personal experience to speak to larger cultural and social stories.
Together, they will reflect on what poetry makes possible when our inherited narratives no longer quite fit—and how writing can become a way of attending to what changes, what remains, and what might yet be reimagined.
Kimberly Dark is a writer, sociologist and storyteller whose keynotes, workshops and storytelling programs have been enjoyed around the English-speaking world for 30+ years. Her heart-warming, funny, and sometimes startling messages help audiences to become the subject of their own stories and to actively co-create culture for a better world.
Author of four books, contributor to dozens of publications and recipient of multiple awards, Kimberly’s latest book – and second poetry collection – took some time to write. It draws from her complex relationship with her mother whose dementia and Alzheimer’s diagnosis launched them both into an elaborate journey of care and chaos. Kimberly offers a rare perspective at the intersection of poetic language, sociological analysis and the love that endures even when a mother-daughter relationship has been painful.
At its core, Motherlode is about mother-daughter relationships, disappointments (on both sides), state failures to protect, caregiver limitations, etc. Anyone with a mother – anyone navigating dementia care and care systems – will find resonance, humor and inspiration in Motherlode.
Lucy Aphramor (they/them) is a dietitian, public scholar and performance poet. They are interested in collectively reimagining the stories we live out – notably around food, bodies, health, gender – to develop liberatory alternatives. Their practice explores interconnected oppressive assumptions, and seeks to think beyond binaries of healthy/unhealthy, good/bad, human/nonhuman using ‘queering as process’. They work within a trans affirming, fat liberationist, disability justice, anti-racist framing. Lucy is a founder member of World Critical Dietetics, a member of the Food Ethics Council and holds the British Dietetic Association roll of honour award. With director Tian Glasgow they have several critically acclaimed 5* reviews at the Edinburgh Fringe. Lucy is currently researching for a social action show on gut health that integrates data on domestic violence and childhood sexual abuse that is systemically erased in mainstreamed nutrition models, and also developing a short, playful show ‘Amazeballs’, for feeling transtastic.
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