"I squeeze myself in places I never want to see with everything that I have in the hopes that I can squeeze myself back together in places I don't understand, and perhaps if I squeeze hard enough, I will escape the black holes"
Beneath the Light is a collection centered on traumatic birth scenarios and navigating the aftermath. Lewis-Waters flawlessly meshes the disparity and cross-section of the anxiety and grief of trauma recovery with the joy and comfort that can be found in motherhood. This work is raw and honest and entirely unafraid of the messy and uncomfortable sides that are often buried and forgotten in an act of beauty.

Laura Lewis-Waters is a poet, English teacher and PhD candidate from the Midlands where she lives with her husband and son. She is currently working towards her PhD at Loughborough University writing poetry about sea level rise. She also writes about teaching, motherhood and mental health. Her first collection, Bathroom Prisoners (Bent Key Publishing), explores the impacts of Obsessive-compulsive disorder and anxiety on a new family. Her poetry has been widely published and she has performed at Latitude Festival, Leeds Poetry Festival and Ludlow Fringe. She was longlisted for the Streetcake Experimental Writing Prize in 2020 and nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize in 2022. She has also worked as a journalist for a newspaper in Singapore. She can be found on Instagram @lauralewis_waters