Maggie Sawkins will be launching her new collection, Zones of Avoidance, based on the live literature production that won last year’s Ted Hughes award, in Portsmouth on Saturday 28 March.

Ted Hughes award judge Denise Riley described Zones of Avoidance, which was directed by Mark C Hewitt, as "a challenging, painfully open account of a daughter's addiction, yet it's an account which also offers graceful good humour. Beautifully written and uncompromising, it's a modern story that we felt the writer was compelled to tell; it acts as a vivid witness of harsh experiences which aren't often described in poetry, and Maggie Sawkins's illuminating descriptions will prove helpful for others to hear."

In an interview with Write Out Loud last year, Sawkins, who is organiser of the regular Tongues&Grooves poetry and music night in Portsmouth, said: “The story is very personal.  I’d been gathering draft material on the subject over a period of 20 years. Much of it was in the form of diary entries and some was in the form of unsent letters to my grandson, who’s been estranged from my daughter since the age of three. My motivation was to keep a record for him – when someone close to you is gripped by addiction you’re always expecting the knock on the door. I could have written the story as a memoir and perhaps made a lot of money. However, reading back through the drafts, I realised that the ‘truth’ could be told in relatively few words. I think all of us have the one tale to tell and there are different ways of telling it. Writing in poetry enabled me to tease out the terrible beauty from what, in reality, has been a much darker story.”

The launch of the book, published by Cinnamon Press, is at The Square Tower, Old Portsmouth at 7.30pm. Entry is free. More details and Map 

Background: ‘The dramatic material provided by living in a battlefield is a gift for any writer’