To an Unknown Receiver: Sonnets & Cascades is my new poetry pamphlet, published in June 2026. It’s a love-letter, an elegy and a time capsule. While writing the sonnets I was thinking obsessively about the climate crisis, and responding to art. The poems think about humanity’s dazzling creativity and capacity for hope alongside the grievous harms we have perpetrated, both to the planet and to one another. The cover art is by the artist Antonia Glücksman.
For this pamphlet I invented a new form called a ‘cascade’. After making fourteen sonnets, I took the first line of one of them, the second line of another, the third line of another, and so on, plotting a cascading path through all fourteen to make a brand-new sonnet. I found five different ‘cascades’ through the same set of sonnets and these are included in the pamphlet.
Hear a poem from the book
I shared ‘Emperor Penguins, Atka Bay’ on David Attenborough’s 100th birthday in May 2026.
Buy a copy
The best way to buy a copy is direct from my publisher Guillemot Press.
Come to a reading
I’ll be reading from the pamphlet throughout 2026, see the Events page for more info.
Poetry commissions
I’ve been lucky enough to write commissioned poems for the Royal Festival Hall (an ode for the building’s 75th birthday), the London Philharmonic Orchestra (responding to a piece of orchestral music by composer Daniel Soley), Spread the Word (two poems for Lewisham Borough of Culture) and the Met Office/Exeter University (re-imaging the Almanack). If you’d be interested in a poem for a special occasion or project please drop me a line.
Erica Hesketh 