Liz Berry - Selly Oak Library, Birmingham
Poet Liz Berry returns to Birmingham鈥檚 Selly Oak Library to reflect on its closure, her childhood memories, and the power of libraries to shape belonging and imagination.
Poet Liz Berry returns to a now empty building that she has a close personal link with. Selly Oak Library in Birmingham, where Liz鈥檚 own mother was a librarian, closed in 2017. Liz reflects on how the the values she inherited from her mother's commitment, curiosity, and care are inseparable from the be-shelved walls.
Empty Spaces explores the beauty and melancholy of abandoned places that still hold meaning. Each episode invites a poet to inhabit one site of their choosing and breathe imagination, memory, and lyricism back into the surroundings via poetry.
Liz is back in the building, to write a poem about the library's recent demise. Opened in 1906, the red-brick library now stands as a witness to a century of community life in bustling Selly Oak. As Liz reflects on the building鈥檚 history and her personal connection to it, she explores how libraries nurture belonging, enlightenment and imagination鈥� and mourns their disappearance.
Producer: Sean Allsop
Executive Producer: Leonie Thomas
Sound Mix: Mike Woolley
An Overcoat Media production for 蜜芽传媒 Radio 3
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