CANR
WORK TITLE: The Catch
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY: Los Angeles
STATE:
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: British
LAST VOLUME: LRC 12_2019
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born 1989, in Chorley, Lancashire, England.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer, poet, model, and actor.
AWARDS:PEN/Ackerley Prize, 2019, for The Terrible; Honorary Doctorate by Lancaster University, 2024.
WRITINGS
Wrote the book of short stories, On Snakes and Other Stories, in 2013. Published short stories and poetry in publications including Vogue, Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, Dazed, Playboy, and Notion. Co-wrote Black Is King, Beyoncé’s musical film and visual album.
SIDELIGHTS
Yrsa Daley-Ward is a writer and poet. She is British and lives in London, England, and Los Angeles, California. She was a successful model in South Africa. Daley-Ward first became known for acquiring a following on Instagram, a social media app on which she has posted her poetry. In an interview with Lovia Gyarkye, contributor to the New York Times Online, Daley-Ward commented on being labeled an “Instagram poet.” Of herself and other poets who post work on Instagram, she told Gyarkye: “We are doing the poetry world a service. … I think it is a wonderful thing that poets are now sharing their work online because work gets into the hands of people of different identities and they feel like they have a voice.”
In 2017, Daley-Ward released her first collection of poetry, called Bone. One of the longer works in the book is “It Is What It Is.” The narrator of this piece recalls her childhood and suggests that she is currently experiencing depression. A turbulent relationship between characters called Samuel and Benny is the focus of “Some Kind of Man.” This poem finds Samuel cheating on Benny at one point and treating her with kindness and care at another. In “Lipsing,” the narrator discusses communication between lovers. The last poem in the collection is “Dankyes (Mwaghavul),” which emphasizes the uniqueness of one particular day.
Elisa Sabbadin, reviewer on the Pendora website, suggested: “The collection is ultimately saved from being dark and obsessive. The poems are also full of light, and of strength, and of warmth. Sometimes, they are touching. It is also true, however, that they are not always easy to relate to, and that the repetitiveness of certain themes and moods might be heavy on people.” Writing on the Atlantic website, Hanif Abdurraqib commented: “It’s to Daley-Ward’s credit that what makes her writing shine in screenshots also makes it shine on the page. She has a knack for getting directly to a story’s heat-point, and once there, to distill the emotions within it.” Abdurraqib added: “Most of Bone ‘s work is structured in flowing prose blocks, or as spaced-out lines that drift down the white space of a page. But what the collection lacks in diversity of form, it makes up for in the layered ingenuity of its narratives.” Abdurraqib also stated: “It honestly excavates a writer’s life, not simply presenting pain, but also showing an individual working through it.”
In The Terrible: A Storyteller’s Memoir, Daley-Ward combines prose and poetry to share the story of her family and her life. She begins by discussing her parents’ history. Her mother was born in Jamaica. When she was a teen, she became pregnant, and her parents sent her to England. Daley-Ward’s father was Nigerian and married. Daley-Ward never met him. She recalls being raised primarily by her mother’s parents, who were devoutly religious and part of the Seventh-Day Adventist church. Daley-Ward experienced depression and anxiety as a young woman and escaped it through sex and partying. While working as a model in South Africa, she came to write poetry. Daley-Ward also discusses her close relationship with her half-brother, Roo, who has also experienced depression.
A Kirkus Reviews contributor described The Terrible as “a powerful, unconventionally structured memoir recounting harrowing coming-of-age ordeals.” The same contributor concluded: “The subtitle is apt: Daley-Ward has quite a ferociously moving story to tell.” “Some readers will be put off by the start-stop nature of this extraordinary narrative. Others will be thrilled by its honesty,” predicted Katy Guest on the London Guardian Online. Anna van Praagh, writer on the London Evening Standard Online, commented: “Yrsa Daley-Ward’s story of her life and all the things that happened … is a rare combination of literary brilliance, originality of voice and a narrative that commands you to keep going until you’ve reached the last page.” Van Praagh added: “Her poetry is moving and original. … Her prose is invigorating, razor-sharp and moves at the speed of light. Yrsa Daley-Ward is an explosive new talent and this book should not be missed.” Reviewing the book on the Sydney Morning Herald Online, Fiona Capp called it “a hybrid of cryptic, spoken-word poetry and punchy prose.” Katy Waldman, critic on the New Yorker Online, suggested: “Despite the provenance of its author, The Terrible does not feel entirely Instapoetic. It is not minimalist. While the book itself can fit inside a large jacket pocket, the language is frequently incantatory, repetitive, or manic. Though her plainspokenness resembles Rupi Kaur’s accessibility, Daley-Ward has a specific story to tell, one that is suspenseful and affecting in its details, whereas Kaur aspires to universality, featurelessness.” Waldman continued: “Daley-Ward is often intentionally funny, and reluctant to wallow in suffering or self-pity. She is less interested in inspiring readers or glamorizing herself than in voicing, with what can seem like sincere surprise, the contents of her mind.”
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Daley-Ward followed up with The How: Notes on the Great Work of Meeting Yourself, which combines her signature poetry and essays to explore the concept of self. To escape depression and loneliness, too often we build barriers to shield ourselves and present a false self to the people we interact with. She shares her own experiences and entreats the reader to have the courage to meet yourself, remove your filters, and reflect on your potential. Daley-Ward says we should communicate with our intimate self, the one we visit in dreams, and the one we reach toward. To practice self-care and reject negative feelings, we need self-reflection and self-inquiry so we can gain inner wisdom and joy. Part self-help and part confession, she addresses feelings of isolation, dissatisfaction, anxiety, depression, and insecurity.
Reviewing The How, a Kirkus Reviews critic called the book an artful, heartfelt manifesto, commenting: “She creates connections, much like a circuit closing, and invites her audience on a voyage of self-discovery. By turns simplistic, elegiac, and illuminative.” A Publishers Weekly writer observed how Daley-Ward draws inspiration from the magic of the universe and the power of nature, and proclaimed: “This work defies genre and features a beautiful blend of lyrical prose and bold poetry.”
Daley-Ward published her first novel, The Catch, named a New York Time Book Review Book Club Selection and one of the Most Anticipated Books of 2025 by Time, Publishers Weekly, and Lit Hub. The first book in the “Well-Read Black Girl Books” series, The Catch is a surreal look into family drama. In 1995 London, Clara and Dempsey were infant twin sisters whose mother, Serene, as aspiring writer, vanished, apparently committing suicide in the Thames river. Clara was adopted by a wealthy family, but Dempsey, wheezy and sick, was adopted a year later by a middle class city councilor and grew up in a loveless home. Thirty years later, Clara is a celebrity writer who has boozy one-night stands, while Dempsey languishes with the dead-end job of data entry and clerical work. One day a woman appears claiming to be Serene, but the catch is, she looks exactly like Serene but hasn’t aged a day since her disappearance. Although Serene claims to have enjoyed her child-free life, Clara is eager to reconnect with her and let her enter her life, but Dempsey suspects she’s a con artist out to exploit Clara’s notoriety.
In an interview with Elise Dumpleton at Nerd Daily, Daley-Ward remarked that she wanted to address themes of mother-loss, sisterhood, and unspoken family stories. She noted that the book is “about memory, identity, and the ways we survive what haunts us. How we author our lives. Expect poetics inside the prose and a world that gets under your skin… The Catch was written out of both anger and deep longing…a need to transform certain ghosts.”
When Publishers Weekly’s Laura Berlinskyschine asked Daley-Ward how much of herself she put into The Catch, she said: “To write is to have a deep understanding of your characters. These characters aren’t actually me, but they do display behaviors, thoughts, and feelings that come from me, or they’re an amalgamation of people who mean a lot to me. …At times, I feel like they each say things that I wish I could say.”
Calling the book engrossing and off-kilter, a Publishers Weekly writer remarked: “The dreamy novel is propelled by searching questions about how to be a mother and how to find fulfillment.” Commenting on Daley-Ward’s mix of prose and poetry, Danez Smith in New York Times Book Review observed: “Daley-Ward writes as the lyrical intensity builds, eventually overwhelming the use of paragraphs and breaking into brief moments of lineated verse, usually for no more than a couplet, a tool the author employs generously throughout.”
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BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, April 15, 2018, review of The Terrible: A Storyteller’s Memoir; September 15, 2021, review of The How: Notes on the Great Work of Meeting Yourself.
New York Times Book Review, June 29, 2025, Danez Smith, review of The Catch, p. 7.
Publishers Weekly, September 20, 2021, review of The How, p. 64; April 7, 2025, review of The Catch, p. 48; April 7, 2025, Laura Berlinskyschine, “In the Poet’s Debut Novel, The Catch, Twin Sisters in London Believe They Have Reconnected with Their Long-Deceased Mother.”
ONLINE
Atlantic Online, https://www.theatlantic.com/ (December 31, 2017), Hanif Abdurraqib, review of Bone.
London Evening Standard Online, https://www.standard.co.uk/ (May 31, 2018), Anna van Praagh, review of The Terrible.
London Guardian Online, https://www.theguardian.com/ (June 8, 2018), Katy Guest, review of The Terrible.
Nerd Daily, https://thenerddaily.com/ (June 14, 2025), Elise Dumpleton, “Q&A: Yrsa Daley-Ward, Author of ‘The Catch.’”
New Yorker Online, https://www.newyorker.com/ (June 13, 2018), Katy Waldman, review of The Terrible.
New York Times Online, https://www.nytimes.com/ (June 7, 2018), Lovia Gyarkye, author interview.
Pendora, https://www.pendoramagazine.com/ (September 25, 2017), Elisa Sabbadin, review of Bone.
Sixtysix, https://sixtysixmag.com/ (June 27, 2024), Chris Force, “Yrsa Daley-Ward on Creating Pockets of Peace Amidst Poetic Success.”
Sydney Morning Herald Online, https://www.smh.com.au/ (June 22, 2018), Fiona Capp, review of The Terrible.
Yrsa Daley-Ward, http://www.yrsadaleyward.net/ (June 28, 2018). *
Yrsa Daley-Ward is an author, actor and screenwriter.
Hailing from the north-west of England, Yrsa draws heavy inspiration from her experiences and larger issues affecting our behaviour, quality of life, and love. Yrsa interweaves each discipline to fuse poetry with theatre, music, and storytelling and has been writing for as long as she can remember. She is most known for her debut book, Bone, Penguin Books as well as for her live poetry performances. Her autobiographical novel, The Terrible, was published in 2018 by Penguin, and in 2019 it won the PEN/Ackerley Prize.
Her newest book ‘The How,’ was published on November 2nd, 2021. Yrsa also co-wrote Black Is King, Beyoncé's musical film and visual album. Her work has appeared in many publications worldwide, including Vogue, Elle, Cosmopolitan, Harpers Bazaar, Dazed and Notion.
Yrsa Daley-Ward
Yrsa Daley-Ward is an author, actor and screenwriter.
Hailing from the north-west of England, Yrsa draws heavy inspiration from her experiences and larger issues affecting our behaviour, quality of life, and love. Yrsa interweaves each discipline to fuse poetry with theatre, music, and storytelling and has been writing for as long as she can remember. She is most known for her debut book, Bone, as well as for her live poetry performances. Her autobiographical novel, The Terrible, was published in 2018 by Penguin, and in 2019 it won the PEN/Ackerley Prize.
Her newest book The How was published on November 2nd, 2021. Yrsa also co-wrote Black Is King, Beyoncé’s musical film and visual album. Her work has appeared in many publications worldwide, including Vogue, Elle, Cosmopolitan, Harpers Bazaar, Dazed and Notion.
Yrsa Daley-Ward is an author, actor, and screenwriter.
On balancing the public and the private
Author, actor, and screenwriter Yrsa Daley-Ward discusses trusting her work, finding ways to self-regulate, and debunking the illusion of an Instagram persona.
TagsWriting, Performance, Poetry, Health, Mental health, Independence, Inspiration, Money, Success
Part of:
Starting something new
Creating your own opportunities
Finding balance
Author
From a conversation with Jennifer Lewis
DateAugust 22, 2025
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You just wrapped an extensive tour with over a dozen stops across the U.S. for your new novel, The Catch. How did you take care of yourself on the road?
Before the tour started, I told myself, “You’re going to have to treat yourself a little bit like—this is very dramatic, but—an athlete.” Not that I was working out, because I wasn’t. But I made sure I had my plant medicines, my ashwagandha. I’m really serious about it. The dysregulation from constant flights, it gets to you. At some point, you realize your body is really affected by that. So I was on it with my teas. I had friends brewing them, and I carried them in bags that probably looked very suspicious in my carry-on.
You’re using the opposite part of yourself that sat alone in a room writing for two years. Now you’re out in the world. I made it restful. I tried to slow down and not feel the urge to over-promise, especially in cities where I was seeing friends I hadn’t seen in a long time.
The first time I saw you perform was at The Booksmith in San Francisco in 2018. You went straight to the podium and began reciting your poetry from memory. I was already familiar with your work on the page, but seeing you deliver it live was incredibly powerful and left a lasting impression.
I appreciate that very much. I love performing and performers, so it means a lot to me. With a poem, some people are only going to really feel it by hearing it. Not everybody connects on the page. We all appreciate things in different ways. For some people, hearing that same poem read aloud will mean so much more. So then I feel like it’s my responsibility to take it off the page.
I find reading long-form work aloud can be challenging, especially in an age of fragmented attention. You’ve read poetry and creative nonfiction before, but how did it feel to read fiction on this tour?
I’m totally with you on that. I always look for the most impactful, high-tension moments… Our brains have changed from constantly looking at our phones. Our attention spans have definitely shortened. So, when I’m choosing what to read, I ask myself, what would I want to hear? It has to be a moment that hits hard, like when the mother tells her daughter she’s going to kill her. That kind of intensity.
I think of it like a performer, but also like a marketer. It’s like a trailer—you show the most tense, shocking scenes to draw people in. You can do that with fiction readings, too. Because sometimes a piece might be beautifully written but if it’s just someone walking up a street, it might not land. We can’t account for where everyone is mentally when they walk into a room. I try to choose something that grabs the audience by the throat, because you don’t have much time.
Your novel breaks a lot of traditional rules. You use shifting points of view, elements of magical realism, and an unconventional third-person narrator. Did anyone advise you against taking those risks? How did you learn to trust your intuition and follow through?
I’m glad you asked that. It’s come up a lot on this tour, and I really do trust this part of my life, deeply. I let the work move through me and I follow it. I don’t let fear get in the way. First, I know it’s the only way I can work. It has to be fun for me, especially with a book this big. I’m not a planner or a plotter. I have to enjoy the process. Second, I’ve always done things on my own. That’s how I started. I’ve always followed my instincts. But I know what you mean. Once you’re in the industry, you really have to push back against the urge to be pigeonholed [into] “she’s a poet,” or “she’s a fiction writer.” I’ve been lucky. I haven’t really been told I can’t do it.
Every book I’ve written has been different, and I think that mirrors life. I don’t like being boxed in. That probably makes things harder sometimes—people like things they can sell and define. But I don’t know how to do it any other way.
Your writing feels like it builds organically, stitched together like a quilt. There’s a shared sense of discovery, and your enthusiasm comes through on the page.
Exactly. It’s fun. I always joke—though I’m only half-joking—that when people ask about the twists and turns, I tell them I was surprised, too. I’m experiencing it right alongside the reader. They ask, “How did you plan this?” and I say, “I wrote it down like a secretary.” That’s how in it I am.
Clara, one of the main characters in The Catch, is a semi-famous writer dealing with a pretty public life. Was it fun to explore the duality and meta elements of her character, especially in relation to your own experience in the literary world?
It was fun to play with the duality, the contrast between what she’s really thinking and what she’s saying. The character is constantly being thrown into spaces where that tension is heightened. The book explores voyeurism, too—how we observe others and project our own narratives onto them. I mean, I do it myself. I’ll be on Instagram looking at someone’s career path, imagining what their life must be like. We all do it.
I wanted to examine that gap between public perception and private experience, especially as the character receives all these accolades while internally experiencing something very different. It was genuinely fun to write about that and to dig into the contradictions of this industry.
The Catch also presents a contrast between the two sisters. Clara is performative and more outward-facing while Dempsey is routine-driven and introspective in nature. As a writer, did you identify with that duality? Do you think balancing visibility with interiority is required to make art?
Yes, I think you need a certain reticence as an artist—a kind of internal withdrawal from the world. You’re not engaging with life in the same way most people do. There’s this push and pull of moments when you’re deeply inward, and others when you’re out there, doing all the things, showing up everywhere. That balance is essential.
How do you manage your relationship with Instagram, and do you have any advice for other writers?
I’ll be honest: I’m in it. I made the decision to be online and to approach it a bit differently, but that’s not without its challenges. I do regret how much time and mental space it takes up. That said, social media has been an incredible vehicle for my career. Back in the self-publishing days of Bone, when I was selling copies out of my bag in Oakland, it was Instagram and Tumblr that helped me find my readers. I’m deeply grateful for that.
Even now, I see [social media] as a space where I can share small pieces of writing. Let’s face it, most people aren’t reading long-form work on those platforms. So, I try to use it for what it does best. The landscape keeps changing—often in ways that confound or worry me—but I’ve chosen to stay part of it. It takes up too much space, yes. But it also continues to offer something real. Both things are true.
Do you do everything yourself?
Everything… As writers, we’re expected to do everything ourselves. Once a book is out, it’s on us to promote it, to keep talking about it, over and over again. Like last night—you have to mention an event at least five times before you can even hope people will show up. The burden falls heavily on the writer, and I do find that difficult. But I keep doing it because I care deeply about the work and what we do.
The Catch feels like a powerful example of using imagination to reach emotional truth. Did writing fiction allow you to access something that nonfiction or poetry couldn’t?
You know what? I’ll say this: it’s not that I accessed more, but I accessed it differently. With my memoir, The Terrible, I was deep in the raw, gritty truth of my own experience. But with fiction, there’s a kind of wildness to the access. It doesn’t all have to come directly from me; it can come from what I imagine, what I project, or what I invent in another person. That freedom is wonderful. In some ways, fiction lets you go even deeper or wilder, precisely because it’s not bound by your own lived reality.
Did you set out to write magical realism, or did it emerge in your work?
I think magical realism is just naturally a part of who I am and what I love. I’m drawn to the absurd and the surreal, even though I don’t really watch much surreal or horror content myself. But in writing, there’s something about those elements that feels true to life. Reality often blurs the line between what’s real and what’s imagined, especially if you have an active imagination. Sometimes you wonder, “Did that just happen, or did I make it up?” I love leaning into that ambiguity. It was genuinely fun to write. It just felt right.
How did you make your art financially sustainable, and what advice would you give to others trying to do the same?
I have kind of a big answer to this, and I’m not sure my way is necessarily the best way. I don’t think everyone can—or should—live with the level of uncertainty I do. That whole “flying by the seat of your pants” thing isn’t for everyone. Personally, I do a variety of things. I write books, of course, but I also have a Substack that I put out twice a week, no matter what. I take on brand consultancy and commissions, do online work, and if I take copy jobs or modeling gigs, they’re always tied into my poetry or larger creative projects—manifestos, essays, that kind of thing. I still act, I write screenplays. It’s a lot of different lanes.
I also work faster than is always comfortable, but that’s just the reality of the economy we’re in. For those of us trying to make writing financially viable, most of us are doubling, tripling, quadrupling our workload. It’s not like you get a book advance and you’re set. That’s just not how it works. So the advice really depends on who you are and what you’re willing to do. I know writers who work full-time jobs and come home to write. That stability works for them. For me, I’ve never really had that kind of stability—not growing up, not now. I’ve learned to live with more uncertainty than most people probably could. I plan month to month, do what I can creatively, and find ways to make it work. But none of this is easy. We’re all doing this in the hope that it will evolve, that we’ll build up a body of work we can live off of, support each other through, and put something meaningful into the world. Something that feeds others, and also feeds us… But if you want to tap into yourself and your well is dry because you can’t afford your rent, it’s really quite tough. It’s a huge test, this career. It’s wonderful. I feel very honored. And it’s a huge test.
When you write on Substack, do you go through any editorial process or share it with anyone before publishing? Or do you send it straight to your readers?
Oh, typos and all, it’s out there. For me, it’s about strengthening the art of non-perfectionism. I’m not really a perfectionist anyway; I just make myself do the work. I think it’s more important to have a connection with my readers. No one’s grading it. It just goes out to all those people… It’s more about being honest about what’s happening in the moment.
If you’re focused on honesty, you can’t really get it wrong—because it’s always changing, and this isn’t a book. I don’t feel the need to be perfect. I feel the need to strengthen the communication and keep going. I’m about to write one now because I realized I haven’t done anything for tomorrow. Maybe I’ll do it in the morning. Sometimes I write it the same day and just press send.
That’s such valuable advice because perfectionism really holds you back.
It really does. You strangle your ideas before they’re born. And sometimes you need the momentum of the thing to take you into an area that you never imagined. So you have to start.
How do you navigate the tension between authenticity and the image that social media projects?
The older I get, the more I feel compelled to debunk that illusion for people. As writers, we have to sell books, and that often means being on Instagram. But I try not to play into the illusion too much, because it just isn’t true. The reality is that this work involves a lot of graft, a lot of uncertainty, and a lot of labor that goes unpaid. Honestly, about 80% of it is free.
What is next for you now?
I’m trying to be intentional right now. Not necessarily with the book itself, because I believe that once it’s out in the world, its destiny is no longer mine to shape. I just hope people are enjoying it. But what I am trying to do is sit in the present moment. It’s easy for me, especially after releasing something, to immediately shift into, “Okay, what’s next?” I always have new ideas swirling. But I’m making an effort to slow down a bit, to take in what this moment actually means.
Do you read other writers while working on a project, or do you prefer to quiet those voices to stay focused?
I’m definitely always reading, mostly because writing takes so long. I usually write in the mornings, before any outside influence has a chance to creep in… Lately, I’ve been drawn to academic papers, which is funny because I don’t consider myself an academic. I’ve been diving into work on neuroscience and poetry, and where the two intersect, and I find it incredibly compelling. I read pretty widely and like to dip in and out of different books all the time.
Do you have any rituals that help you create?
Only that I write in the morning, just after waking, when I’m still half in the dream state. That’s when I feel clearest, like everything is glittering and possible.
Yrsa Daley-Ward recommends:
Pleasure synth pop, specifically Pleasure Business’s new album, a pulsing backdrop for solo evenings or soft, cinematic mornings, driving through LA.
The poem “Bitcherel” by Eleanor Brown, for its rage and no mercy.
Magnesium before bed (malate and glycinate mix). It helps.
Armenian incense curling through the house like time slowed down.
Necessary Fiction by Eloghosa Osunde.
Leaving my phone in another room for most of the day, which is a privilege, and I know it.
The Ballad of Wallis Island, a film that should have more attention.
Art galleries in the morning, when the light hasn’t made everything too loud yet.
Morning walks to reset the neural pathways in the amygdala—literal rewiring.
Saying no.
Q&A: Yrsa Daley-Ward, Author of ‘The Catch’
Elise Dumpleton·Writers Corner·June 14, 2025·2 min read
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We chat with author Yrsa Daley-Ward about The Catch, which is a darkly whimsical tale of women daring to live and create with impunity.
Hi, Yrsa! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
I’m a writer, poet, and speaker born in England, now living between Los Angeles and wherever the work takes me. I write about longing, identity, the body, the unsayable. My work moves between poetry, memoir, fiction, and this emerging field I call poetic intelligence…where writing meets brain science, healing, and attention. I’m interested in how language changes us.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
Very young! I was always writing things down. Songs, scraps and strange little observations. I loved the permission in it. You could say anything on the page, things you couldn’t always say aloud. The freedom of that stayed with me. I always feel the mot liberated on the page.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
The first book you ever remember reading: THE LITTLE RED HEN
The one that made you want to become an author: THE LITTLE RED HEN
The one that you can’t stop thinking about: Too many Alice Walker’s too many Jeanette Winterson’s too many Toni Morrison’s
Your debut fiction novel, The Catch, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Dark. Lyrical. Oddball. Haunting. Defiant.
What can readers expect?
A fierce, lyrical novel about twin sisters, abandonment, longing, and the search for a lost mother. But more than that it’s about memory, identity, and the ways we survive what haunts us. How we author our lives. Expect poetics inside the prose and a world that gets under your skin.
Where did the inspiration for The Catch come from?
I’d been circling themes of mother-loss, sisterhood, and unspoken family stories for years. They kept showing up in poems, in fragments. At some point, the story insisted on becoming a novel. The Catch was written out of both anger and deep longing…a need to transform certain ghosts.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
The twin dynamic between Clara and Dempsey was fascinating to write… two mirrors, two opposites, always circling each other. I also loved writing the stranger-woman is she their mother character, whose ambiguity and magnetism really pull the story into its deeper waters.
See also
Q&A: Kara Barbieri, Author of ‘Goblin King’
Did you face any challenges whilst writing? How did you overcome them?
I’m sure. But it was like a dream, and I don’t recall the challenges now. I trusted the process, even when it was uncomfortable.
What’s next for you?
I’m touring with The Catch now and building out the utter, a platform that blends neuroscience, poetry and brain health, as I mentioned earlier. Poetic intelligence. I am always moving between forms, but it’s all connected: how language heals, how it sharpens us.
Lastly, what books have you enjoyed reading this year? Are there any you’re looking forward to picking up?
Books I enjoyed this year are Necessary Fiction by Eloghosa Osunde. I was lucky to read an advance copy What an extraordinary writer. Also A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James – epic, brutal, brilliant. I am circling back, I think, this year to Ann Carson and Octavia E. Butler. They spark my imagination.
Will you be picking up The Catch? Tell us in the comments below!
Yrsa Daley-Ward on Creating Pockets of Peace Amidst Poetic Success
The writer and model delves into the bravery needed to embrace poetry as a vocation, the importance of diverse creative endeavors, and the intentional moments that shape her journey.
Interview by Chris Force
June 27, 2024
Yrsa Daley-Ward is a British writer, actor, and model, known for her powerful poetry and prose that explores themes of identity, mental health, and sexuality. She has collaborated with Beyoncé, contributing to the visual album Black Is King, and her acclaimed works include the poetry collections Bone and The Terrible, the latter of which won the PEN Ackerley Prize.
Chris Force: I’m curious about the bravery it takes to consider yourself a poet. The idea of writing my most vulnerable feelings in fragmented, unorthodox ways and sharing them with the world to put food on my table is unimaginable.
Yrsa Daley-Ward: I don’t know that it does. You have to become well-versed in doing a bunch of stuff. I’m from a Jamaican immigrant mother who knew what it was like to work two jobs and also be studying. She was studying for her degree right up until 10 years before she died. She was always striving.
I have had to adopt a mentality of layering one thing over the other over the other. I’m acting, I’m speaking somewhere, I’m writing my book, and I’m thinking of pitching another one—and that is the way. It’s impossible for me to sit and wait for the muse to strike. I don’t have that luxury. Whether it’s modeling or acting, I have to become good at doing a lot of things. When I’m flying somewhere I’m also writing or taking a commission.
On the other hand I’ve also created great pockets of peace I have to be intentional about. I spend the majority of my time by myself. I’m a poet, and yes, this is how I live, but it’s also a bunch of other things. It’s working with brands. It’s also doing things I can fit words around; you have to get creative with it.
Tell me about these pockets of peace.
As I get older I can’t override my body. Sometimes I have to after a long flight, but I really try to be inside of my body. I’m not someone who will force myself to be super social. I don’t know how to do that anyway; I’m more of a one-on-one person. I meditate and I make sure I take care of myself. Sometimes it’s as simple as sleeping a lot. I take time to rest and don’t force myself to be around what drains me.
Are you ever hard on yourself to be better—or to be as successful as your peers? To make more money or be more financially successful?
You can’t compare yourself to someone else. Everyone is on a totally different trajectory and comes from a different background, so I don’t have those fears. I love when people are brilliant. That energizes me. I don’t want to have done my best work. My best work should always be this thing I’m aiming toward.
As far as making more money, of course. As a poet I want to make sure I have some stability. This fear of not having enough, or not knowing how much you’re going to make, seems to be part of the artist’s journey. It completely limits your creativity because you’re out worrying about that. It isn’t a peaceful place to be in.
THE MIDDLE FINGER POEM
By Yrsa Daley-Ward
You say that I don’t seem myself.
These days are long and revealing,
so every time I see one through, I grin.
Every time I make it home, I dance.
Every time I’m up again after being down, down, down;
I’m beating the odds.
Every time I don’t give up,
it’s worthy of celebration. Every time I write a poem,
it’s a bloody miracle. Of course, the me you knew before
is less available. She is keeping herself awake.
She is salt bathing and
forest walking and turning off her phone.
She is learning herself
and teaching herself piano. See the headlines.
See the persistent, awful news,
see the updates no one wants to hear or know about.
See the numbers – have you seen the numbers?
See the terrorists they will never call terrorists.
See the telling dark of the system.
See my beautiful body; offensive. My gleaming skin;
a problem. Who can still be themselves these days?
Isn’t the self a fine art composite,
an odd mosaic
a strange and growing story?
I no longer have time to lie to you.
Why do you think the cultural understanding or acceptance of poetry hasn’t evolved much despite social media poems and hip-hop being so massively popular?
I agree, I don’t think poetry is considered very mainstream. It’s cool in some places but not all. If you think of Kendrick Lamar, he won the Pulitzer Prize. Music has an entry point for everybody. It’s all in how it’s captured. I blame the school system as well for teaching us closed-shop poetry that people don’t understand instead of accessible poetry. When poets make very accessible work, people like it.
I found your books very accessible, but I’m sure there were layers or levels of your work I wasn’t picking up on.
I doubt it. It’s all there to see. I don’t think in that way. I don’t write in that way. What you see is what’s on the page.
Do you ever think about how you might bring your talents and work to different audiences?
One thing I like to do is perform my poetry with musicians. Sometimes it’s acoustic, sometimes it’s electronic music. Sometimes I just put the words over a beat and create different ways of letting the work travel.
I imagine you don’t have the opportunity to digest or live with the work you’re publishing in your newsletter the same way you do when you’re writing a book. It seems so personal and intimate at times. Your thoughts must be flying off your fingers and out to the world. Has that been different from the process of writing your books?
I’m a patient-impatient person. I’m patient on the face of it; I’m not someone who reads into something after it’s been done. The newsletter satisfies how I feel in the moment. I freewrite and put it out there. It doesn’t need to be perfect. It goes into people’s inboxes, and they can read it or not read it. I try not to obsess over it. It’s different than printed matter, which takes about two years from start to finish. For me that is not the most enjoyable process, to be honest. It’s lovely to have the “click” and the pleasure of having it out in the newsletter. The thing isn’t even edited; it’s just a moment, and then it’s gone, like the weeks. They just go. I don’t see the point of worrying about this stuff in the bigger scheme of things. I just want to share something real.
Have you always had that confidence? Or is that something you had to learn?
I don’t know if it’s confidence, it’s just not where I place value. I love writing. I know that it’s imperfect; I’m just learning in public. Maybe I’ll keep getting better support, or maybe I’ll keep strengthening. I’m happy to show that process.
You have worked on some major projects, most famously with Beyoncé. What did you learn through that level of collaboration?
I’m excited by people who are married to their craft and care about every aspect of it. It’s something I aspire to—that kind of attention to detail. Beyoncé has that, and it’s so evident. She’s there for every decision that gets made. When you’re up close to that you can’t help but want to be even more of yourself. It’s easy to go into spaces where you think that’s happening, but it’s not; it’s actually loads of middlemen. The whole thing happened so quickly as well. Not the work itself, but from hearing I was going to be doing that, to being in LA and doing it—it felt like two minutes. It was a great learning experience.
Who else are you reading right now?
I love Jeanette Winterson because of the genre-bending aspect of it. I’m reading one of my favorite books by her again called Written on the Body. I’m also re-listening to this book by Annie Dillard called Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, which when I’m traveling helps me sleep. The imagery is so dense, it helps me drop into myself. And I’m reading Roald Dahl.
That’s unexpected. How did that end up on your shelf?
As a kid it was the first time I had seen someone embed poetry into a story and make it better. I like when things fizz and melt into each other. I think it’s interesting. Roald Dahl was one of the first people I came across who did that.
yrsadaleyward.substack.com
Interview: Yrsa Daley-Ward
Cover of Yrsa Daley-Ward's The Terrible Cover of Yrsa Daley-Ward's Bone Cover of Yrsa Daley-Ward's On Snakes and Other Stories
Yrsa Daley-Ward was born to immigrant parents (Jamaican and Nigerian) in England, then lived in South Africa for several years as she pursued a career in modeling. It was in South Africa that she encountered the slam and spoken-word poetry community and began writing. She has now published three books—a collection of short stories, On Snakes and Other Stories (2013); a collection of poems, Bone (2014; 2017); and, most recently a memoir, The Terrible (2018). Daley-Ward considers herself an activist for feminist, LGBTQ+, and mental health issues, but expressed the hope that her writing is for everyone.
Lisa Roney for The Florida Review:
It’s rare to find a fashion model who becomes a poet. I read that you had come across a slam poetry event, a spoken-word poetry event when you lived in South Africa. I thought that was a wonderful story. Did that inspire your frankness? It’s interesting to think about you as this very independent person who speaks about the fashion industry in this very honest way and yet still participates in the fashion industry. I just wonder how you combine these two worlds. Is it the sort of situation where you feel a little estranged from the fashion world? Do you have good friends that are thrilled that you are also writing? How do you combine these two cultures—one of which seems to be based on a certain kind of objectification of women, and yet your poetry is very strong and powerful and feminist and anti-objectification? How do you combine them?
Yrsa Daley-Ward:
I think it’s really important to remember—and that’s, I think, the beauty of doing lots of things that are seemingly contradictory—that we’re all multi-faceted human beings. There are models who write. There are people who are seen controversial and wild to our brilliant parents. There are teachers who are engaged in nefarious activities. We’re all like a composite of so many things, and to be in your fullness is really important. I think too much we’re defined by what we do [for a living] or what we look like, even like the gender binary, being super feminine or masculine, so to speak. I love to embrace all aspects of myself. I think that’s super important.
TFR:
I think a lot about the spotlight and how the spotlight is different for a model versus an author. Could you comment about how the spotlight is different?
Daley-Ward:
It is, and it really shouldn’t be, but it is! It’s sort of this weird Venn diagram that’s happening. I enjoy both because in both there’s an aspect of you and performance and rawness. As much as people don’t appreciate it, modeling is an art form like writing. I do think it is.
TFR:
I’m sure it is.
I’m just thinking about the spotlight. I think a lot of that performative act. Do you think it’s easier for you to perform as a writer because you have the modelling career?
Daley-Ward:
No.
TFR:
It’s a different kind of performance.
Daley-Ward:
It’s completely different.
TFR:
That’s what I was fascinated about. For some reason, I think it had to do with seeing those photographs of you, especially the ones that were with the Guardian article and they were extremely beautiful, but they were also severe and remote, distant. I felt a great deal of distance from you, so I was like, “I wonder what it’s like to be photographed in that context.” I’m sure you are performing that for the camera, yet there is something else that comes across in these poems that’s so powerful and human and down to earth. You had described that first spoken-word event where you read your poem and people applauded for you and loved it—you felt that close human connection. I was just interested in how those two things are different or similar if they tap into each other at all.
Daley-Ward:
First of all, that article was really odd because what I said was taken out of context in nearly every line, and I completely didn’t recognize myself in that or in the photos. If you look at any other photo, even in modelling, I just don’t look like that. It was strange. I think most photos capture my essence as it is, but I do think there’s a different spotlight. In modelling, I guess you’d be prepared for what’s happening, whereas you roll up to a writing event and then, all of a sudden, people are taking photographs and it’s just you. But both of them are just different aspects of the same thing. I love balance; I love being able to do the switch between the two. I write every day. I actually do a lot more writing than modelling at the moment, but I really enjoy both elements. I think they can bleed into each other. I think you can show humanity and softness, maybe not in the Guardian article [laughter], but humanity and softness in modelling in the same way.
TFR:
I am fascinated by how you developed such a strong sense of self coming out of the religious background that you describe in some of the poems, and in other interviews as well. It’s a very strict, very severe kind of upbringing that you’ve described. I guess the stereotype, especially of women, who come out of that kind of background is that they are very self-sacrificing and they’re very self-abnegating. They don’t have a lot of confidence, and yet you do. You exude strength. Where did that spark start for you that, “I’m me and I’m these complicated things and I’m going to be powerful”?
Daley-Ward:
I was lucky enough to have been introduced to literature and language at a really young age by a mom who was a single parent, a Jamaican immigrant, so the need for education and everything like that was impressed on me from an early age. So, I got this gift of opening books and learning about deep and complicated subjects and people who didn’t always say what they meant, people who were doing all kinds of things. I read everything when I was young. I read the Bible, I read the Kama Sutra, both of them very intently. There’s always been dichotomy and contradictions, but I think that allowed me to feel rich. And conflicted—yes—but conflict is very human, isn’t it?
The gift of religion helps you understand people because you go to church or wherever it is that you worship, and you see the way people struggle with religion and what they say versus what they do and everybody trying to chase this ideal. Of course, religion has its very difficult aspects, but it’s also really beautiful. Learning to appreciate and see the joy in a lot of different things is something that such a strict religion did for me because as much as I was nervous and I felt like I was not going to heaven, I also loved the ceremony of it and the fellowship of it as well. There are lots of different parts to it.
TFR:
How would you describe your own religious belief? I felt like Bone in a way moves back in time. I was really touched by getting to the poems in the latter part of the book where they seem to be very kind to your grandparents and your mother. I had formed this question early on which was like, What is your relationship with your grandparents now? What is your relationship with that? You’ve talked about it already a little bit, about the community that you found in the church and the beauty of the ritual and such. Maybe that’s a very personal question, but I’m really interested in that same issue that you brought up, which is about watching people in various religious traditions struggle with what they mean in their own lives. We have a lot of that going on in the U.S. public life right now.
Daley-Ward:
Oh, goodness! Yes, so much.
TFR:
If it’s not too personal a question, how do you relate to the religious world that you came from?
Daley-Ward:
I’m not a Seventh-day Adventist, which is the religion I was brought up in. It’s ever-changing. I’m attempting to fathom what that is. What do I believe still? There were a lot of things that were heavily ingrained, and they never really worked themselves out. Even though I live this life that is apparently the opposite of all of that, there are things in me that aren’t going to come out. I do catch myself on any given day wondering what the truth is. Of course, nobody knows for sure. We live on faith. Especially, Christians live on faith. I am constantly grappling with how I feel about religion and the idea of God versus my idea of the universe. I am spiritual, but religious, no.
TFR:
I think that’s really what I sensed in this book, and it comes across really well. Your poem “Poetry,” from Bone, but which you read in an online video, reminded me a lot of Tess Gallagher’s short essay, “Ode to My Father.” Do you know that essay?
Daley-Ward:
No, but I’m going to read it.
TFR:
I brought it to you.
Daley-Ward:
Oh, my God! Thank you!
TFR:
She has this wonderful line. She says, “If terror and fear are necessary to the psychic stamina of a poet, I had them in steady doses just as inevitably as I had the rain.” This is an essay and poem about her parents arguing and her father beating her and how she gradually came to forgive him. When I read your poem “Poetry,” I was very much reminded of that.
Daley-Ward:
I see the link.
TFR:
I wanted to ask what you see as the connection between difficulties in life and poetry.
Daley-Ward:
There is nothing that you can’t work up into art. Whether it’s poetry or whether you’re painting or making a piece of theater or anything, what happens to you is going to strengthen what you are doing. The thing I think is so beautiful about poetry is how we can succinctly reach into our hearts and the hearts of other people because we are all having the same experiences on this planet. These experiences transcend, for the most part, class, race, gender, all those things. I think it’s important to have those moments and—I wouldn’t say to document them or identify with them—but definitely reach out. If a poem can make somebody feel somewhat less isolated or that there is somebody else who understands what they are feeling or just put a voice to how they’re feeling, then the poem’s done its job or the piece of art has done its job. Of course, difficulty is gold.
TFR:
It’s such an interesting thing about writing. It’s kind of a joke that we tend to say. Something terrible happens to you, and you’re like, “Oh, well, it’s material.”
Daley-Ward:
Yeah!
TFR:
I think it’s an odd juxtaposition for writers where sometimes they end up seeking it out.
Daley-Ward:
Yeah—that’s dangerous!
TFR:
Being destructive in their own lives in order to have material. Sometimes that works out and sometimes it doesn’t work out.
Daley-Ward:
I guess too much of that could block you. Those difficulties are going to come up. You don’t need to make them happen. They’re part of life.
TFR:
Why do you think it’s so important for poetry to reach beyond the “elite,” to reach ordinary people, and what do you think that poetry can do to help ordinary people?
Daley-Ward:
We’re all ordinary. We all have feelings. Literature is for everyone, not a select group of people. That’s ludicrous! What can it do for ordinary people? It gives them voice, it helps people feel less alone, it brings us together and we all desperately need to be brought together because we’re so divided. We’re all connected in this world. It feels crazy to me. Poetry acts as a bridge. It brings us closer together, it helps us not feel so alone, it gives an outlook to something that’s inside. If I was not writing, God knows what mental state I would be in.
TFR:
Your poems are very, very, very personal, but they also feel to me that they have a social, political edge to them. They have implications beyond the self. I think for writers in particular, the current social state that we’re living through in this world can feel increasingly hostile. How we might work, all of us, writers, to bring people to poetry and to literature where I feel that there is this more complex understanding of other human beings?
Daley-Ward:
I think there are so many things. This is actually so exciting because this is starting to happen online—and I know people have a lot of mixed feelings about this—but even the poetry, almost a whole canon already, that has appeared on Instagram has made lots of young people, people who would never pick up a poetry book for fear that it might be boring, which a lot of poetry is . . .
TFR:
Sometimes it is!
Daley-Ward:
Things like that—poetry in dance, in films, poetry with music, going to prisons, teaching it in schools. Impromptu poetry performances on the street would bring so many people to it because they realize, “Oh, it’s not this closed shop. It’s just people talking about their feelings.” If more people knew that and didn’t think that it was this thing that is closed. Honestly, there is just so much poetry that I don’t understand. I know it’s so clever, but I don’t think I’m a strong enough reader of poetry yet. I buy poetry books by the bucket-load, but I’m still learning how to read it and how to access that super academic poetry. I love everything, but it’s important for that not to be the only thing.
TFR:
I agree. That’s one reason why I was so drawn to your book.
Daley-Ward:
Yes.
TFR:
Partly, it was that contrast with some of other poets. Just the contrast is a wonderful thing. We can have both of these things. We can have the world where someone is paying attention to every single syllable and creating some kind of sonnet or some kind of formal poem and yet, we can also have poetry that’s raw and down to earth.
I’m also really looking forward to your memoir [The Terrible]. I love that you said, “It will tell everything.”
Daley-Ward:
It pretty much does.
TFR:
What do you think is the relationship between truth-telling as an important kind of upstanding thing to do and rebellion for shock’s sake? What’s the relationship between those two things? How do you think about truth-telling?
Daley-Ward:
I think it’s a powerful tool in a world where there is not a lot of it, unfortunately. I never intended to write a memoir or tell anybody anything about myself, ever, but it’s just the way in which this has come to me. There were doses of fear that come along with that. When I started to examine what the reason for this was, the most important thing that came out of nowhere—and which gives me a reason to be here and sit down and be able to do all this, without turning me into a nervous wreck—is just the fact that I think to be here is to be in service to the world, in service for people for whom these experiences are completely normal. When I speak about marginalized communities, it’s not only people of color, queer people, sex workers, people who’ve been involved in what we call criminal activity. I’m a deeply private person, but something about making this kind of work is stronger. I was talking to my friend today on the phone and we were just talking. I get some lines sometimes when I’m just chatting and I said to her, “My destiny is louder than my comfort.” I was like, “Oh! I’m going to Tweet that!” It really is at this point. It’s become more important to do that.
TFR:
It’s gone beyond yourself and your expression. You feel a responsibility to other people.
Daley-Ward:
I do! Otherwise, how are we going to do this? Our sex workers are going to think that they can’t write the next bestseller. Children of color who live on council estates or in the hoods are going to think they can’t write a Pulitzer prize.
TFR:
Especially now, because we do seem to be in a time of shrinking opportunity where the rich get richer and everybody else is left behind. It’s scary sometimes, especially in terms of education. I understand that completely, that sense of responsibility for bringing that forward.
Could you comment on Instagram and other social media as a method of artistic expression? Do you see social media as the future of poetry and other literary forms? What are the limitations of that?
Daley-Ward:
Not completely the future, because where there is progress and wonderful work on Instagram, one of the issues with things happening on mass media is that, sometimes, it might lose its power. That’s a small price to pay because it’s making literature current. Literature has always been current, but now to reach everybody, because almost everyone has a smartphone. As much as people who have an attitude about this won’t like this, I think it’s wonderful because if you were never interested in poetry, now, these days, people will be engaging with poetry whether they know it or not, which I think is wonderful, especially for young people, the next generation.
TFR:
What’s next for you?
Daley-Ward:
Every day I ask myself that. It’s The Terrible next. I just finished my final edit of that which has been a really interesting process. I’ve just relocated to New York. I love to meet people and I love to read poetry, and I hope to do so much more of it live. Sometimes I do it with musicians. Just to be doing what I love and to create more work constantly. I hold myself accountable in that way—actually getting stuff done. So, writing and really documenting this time because it feels really special. It’s very important to me.
TFR:
Any last words of wisdom?
Daley-Ward:
I don’t know that I’m wise.
TFR:
Or last words of spirit?
Daley-Ward:
I would say that in this world, it’s more important than ever before for people to feel empowered to tell their stories because their stories are very valid, and if you are worried whether it’s strong enough or good enough or whether it’s compelling enough, always know that the thing that is the most raw and honest will be compelling to other people because we are all connected. If you have a story that you want to write, tell your story. We really do want to hear it.
Yrsa Daley-Ward
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Yrsa Daley-Ward
Daley-Ward in 2024
Born 1989 (age 35–36)
Chorley, Lancashire, England
Occupation(s) Writer, model and actor
Notable work Bone (2014)
The Terrible (2018)
Awards 2019 PEN/Ackerley Prize
Website www.yrsadaleyward.com
Yrsa Daley-Ward (born 1989) is an English writer, model and actor.[1][2] She is known for her debut book, Bone, as well as for her spoken-word poetry, and for being an "Instagram poet".[3][4] Her memoir, The Terrible, was published in 2018,[5] and in 2019 it won the PEN/Ackerley Prize.[6] She co-wrote Black Is King, Beyoncé's musical film and visual album, which also serves as a visual companion to the 2019 album The Lion King: The Gift.[7]
Life and career
Yrsa Daley-Ward was born to a Jamaican mother and Nigerian father in Chorley, Lancashire, in Northern England, where she grew up with her grandparents, who were devout Seventh-day Adventists.[1]
In her late teens and early 20s, Daley-Ward was a model, "working for brands such as Apple, Topshop, Estée Lauder and Nike".[8] In search of better opportunities, she found the money to buy a ticket to South Africa, where she eventually lived for three years, and has said: "The thing that attracted me to South Africa was that the models look like me and there's so much more diversity".[9]
In her mid-20s, she began to perform and get recognized for her poetry in Cape Town, South Africa, while also working as a model. Not long after returning to London in 2012, she was invited back to South Africa to work alongside the British Council, headlining two poetry festivals in Johannesburg.[10]
Daley-Ward was then listed as one of the top five female writers to watch for by Company Magazine.[11]
Daley-Ward is known for her poems and writings on topics such as identity, race, mental health, and femininity.[12] She is vocal on topics of depression, particularly in her poem "Mental Health", published in her collection Bone. First self-published in 2014, and subsequently issued by Penguin Books in 2017 with additional poems and an introductory essay by Kiese Laymon, Bone has been described by Hanif Abdurraqib in The Atlantic magazine as an "impressive debut" that "honestly excavates a writer’s life, not simply presenting pain, but also showing an individual working through it."[13]
Before publishing Bone in 2014, Daley-Ward released a book of short stories entitled On Snakes and Other Stories in 2013.[12]
Daley-Ward has used social media platforms such as Instagram and Twitter in order to promote her work and connect with her fans. She also made an appearance in a TEDx Talk[14] conference with her talk Your Stories and You.[15]
Daley-Ward has been quoted as saying: "If you're afraid to write it, that's a good sign. I suppose you know you're writing the truth when you're terrified". In an interview with ELLE, she talks openly about her past and struggles along her own journey in developing thicker skin in the face of criticism.[16]
In June 2018, her new book The Terrible was published, a coming-of-age memoir that The Evening Standard called "a rare combination of literary brilliance, originality of voice and a narrative that commands you to keep going until you’ve reached the last page",[17] while the reviewer for The Sunday Times described Daley-Ward as "a stylish writer, as well as an unusual voice".[18] The same month, Daley-Ward discussed her life on BBC Radio Four's Woman's Hour and read her poem "Poetry".[19] In 2019, The Terrible won the PEN/Ackerley Prize.[6]
Daley-Ward co-wrote Black Is King, Beyoncé's musical film and visual album, which serves as a visual companion to the 2019 album The Lion King: The Gift.[20] Daley-Ward's work has appeared in many publications worldwide, including Vogue, Elle, Harper's Bazaar, Dazed, Playboy and Notion. She is also a contributor to the 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby.[21][22]
Daley-Ward's 2021 book, The How – Notes on the Great Work of Meeting Yourself, is "a compilation of essays, poems, heartfelt musings and earnest advice that provides a 'nudge toward' finding your voice".[23]
In July 2024, Daley-Ward was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Lancaster University.[24]
Daley-Ward's 2025 book, The Catch is "a deeper look into motherhood, sisterhood, and what it's like to take one path over the other."[25][26][27]
Filmography
Year Title Role Notes
2021 – 2024 Outer Range Dr. Nia Bintu Series 1 and 2
2019 – 2023 World on Fire Connie Knight Series 1 and 2
Publications
Books
On Snakes and Other Stories (3:am Press, 2013, ISBN 978-0957357181)
Bone (CreateSpace Independent Publishing, 2014; Penguin (Particular Books), 2017, Foreword by Kiese Laymon, ISBN 978-1846149665)
The Terrible (Penguin, 2018, ISBN 978-1846149825)
The How – Notes on the Great Work of Meeting Yourself (Penguin, 2021, ISBN 9780143135609)
The Catch: A Novel (W.W.Norton (Liveright), 2025, ISBN 978-1-324-09251-3)
Acting work
World on Fire (2019)
Boxx (2016)
White Colour Black (2016)
A Moving Image (2016)
Der Koch (2014)
Death Race: Inferno (2013) [video]
David is Dying (2011)
Also appeared in:
Kidnap and Ransom (2012)
Shameless (2009)
Drop Dead Gorgeous (2007)[2]
Daley-Ward, Yrsa THE HOW Penguin (NonFiction None) $17.00 11, 2 ISBN: 978-0-14-313560-9
A heartfelt, artful manifesto focused on living fully and authentically.
Poet Daley-Ward addresses readers directly and speaks for them collectively, in addition to sharing her own experiences, in an earnest effort to offer them a reflection of themselves as well as their potential. "We must know," she begins, "there are no truths but the ones that we arrive at on our own." This admittedly indirect path--what she describes as "the great work of meeting yourself"--defines this book. The author includes exercises and affirmations designed to help readers examine and redefine "what we think lifeis all about what we think workis, and to release the idea that we must suffer and struggle for the things that we want." She addresses feelings such as restlessness, dissatisfaction, anxiety, depression, insecurity, isolation, romance, self-compassion, gratitude, and grief, proposing solutions such as simplifying, writing down one's dreams, and taking time every day away from the phone. She suggests myriad practices of self-inquiry to attune readers to their inner wisdom and joy. "If you are not spiritually fit right now," she warns, "running anywhere else is pointless. The next place will never save you." Other tidbits of advice include: "Just be more you: that's the solution"; "We should always be letting go"; "You have to save yourself and worry about the rest later"; "Expression is relief, and surefire medicine." Throughout this slim book, the author strikes a balance between self-help and confession. For example, when she shares her own knowledge that she can never look to anything external as a way out of herself--although that doesn't stop her from trying--she opens up space for readers to reflect on their own accounts of avoidance and/or real desires. She creates connections, much like a circuit closing, and invites her audience on a voyage of self-discovery.
By turns simplistic, elegiac, and illuminative.
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"Daley-Ward, Yrsa: THE HOW." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Sept. 2021. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A675150224/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=3d60cc42. Accessed 17 Oct. 2025.
Yrsa Daley-Ward. Penguin, $17 trade paper (192p) ISBN 978-0-1431-3560-9
Poet Daley-Ward (Bone) wonders, "In a world so filled with voice, how to ever be sure of yourown?" in this gratifying exploration of self. Daley-Ward excels at describing the indescribable: depression is referred to as "the thing that lurks" and loneliness is "a mix of several unspecified, blue things." To deal with these and other negative feelings, she practices self-care by spending time alone, saying, " 'Selfish' has horrible press, and yet this inward focus, this business of feeling good, is vital when it comes to the wealth of the mind." She draws inspiration from the magic of the universe and the power of nature, which Daley-Ward suggests teaches "the largest acts of love" because "it shows us itself again and again and asks us for nothing." This work defies genre and features a beautiful blend of lyrical prose and bold poetry: "We are human, and often we think of ourselves as lone, separate entities, forgetting that we are connected to this odd and expanding universe, forgetting that we are part of something vast and unexplained." Amid her musings, Daley-Ward also weaves in affirmations and prompts for self-reflection. This is a tender, hopeful meditation. (Nov.)
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"The How: Notes on the Great Work of Meeting Yourself." Publishers Weekly, vol. 268, no. 38, 20 Sept. 2021, p. 64. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A677353027/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=0e66c41e. Accessed 17 Oct. 2025.
The Catch
Yrsa Daley-Ward. Liveright, $28.99 (320p) ISBN 978-1-324-09251-3
Poet Daley-Ward (Bone) makes her fiction debut with an engrossing and off-kilter tale of twin sisters and their mother, a Black woman who left them when they were infants in 1995 London. Clara and Dempsey were adopted by different families after a dead body found on the banks of the Thames was identified as their mother, Serene (their father's identity was unknown). Now, at 30, Clara is a successful novelist who drinks too much and has meaningless sex, while Dempsey is a reclusive data entry worker who relies on an unorthodox life coach. When Clara sees a woman who looks just like the Serene she knows from photos, she's convinced the woman is her and Dempsey s mother, but there's a catch: the stranger appears to be 30, the age Serena was when she disappeared. Clara and the stranger fall into an intriguing pushpull relationship; Clara hopes to take care of her, but she says Clara is the one who "seem[s] a little lost." When Clara claims to Dempsey that their mother has reappeared, Dempsey worries that the woman is an opportunistic imposter. In chapters from the perspective of aspiring writer Serene in 1995, the reader gains insight into the reasons behind her departure. The dreamy novel is propelled by searching questions about how to be a mother and how to find fulfillment. This family drama stands out from the pack. Agent: Marya Spence, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. (June)
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"The Catch." Publishers Weekly, vol. 272, no. 14, 7 Apr. 2025, p. 48. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A835360866/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=e0c5c187. Accessed 17 Oct. 2025.
What was it like to write a novel with your poetry background? My first entry into reading and writing was fiction. Poetry just took over--it was how I got into the business. But I wrote my first novel when I was 18--it wasn't very good--and fiction has always been a part of me. It's so lovely to actually put a novel out. It's been a long time coming. One of the twins and their mother have each written an autobiographical novel.
How much of yourself did you put into The Catch? To write is to have a deep understanding of your characters. These characters aren't actually me, but they do display behaviors, thoughts, and feelings that come from me, or they're an amalgamation of people who mean a lot to me. Even if they're not me, I have a good understanding of them. Writing fiction can feel like wish fulfillment. At times, I feel like they each say things that I wish I could say.
Twins Clara and Dempsey are in many ways two sides of the same coin. How did you navigate writing protagonists who are so similar in some ways but opposite in others? It speaks to the fight inside of us. You know when one self is saying one thing and the other self is saying another? They're both valid. In the extremes of the two sisters, it gave me a chance to show those characters' broad spectrum of thought. There's something about writing two sides of the same coin that's deeply satisfying.
Also, I have a lot of voices going on, so it was nice to put two of them on paper! We do a lot of shape-shifting, particularly as women, and particularly for me as a double immigrant--I'm English, I live in America, and my parents are Jamaican and Nigerian--so writing in two disparate styles is second nature.
London is its own character in the novel. How has location played a role in your own life and writing? London represents such a specific time to me. It's the site of a lot of drama and a lot of beauty, but also deep difficulty--feeling trapped in a way. I love that London is its own character because it speaks to where the sisters are and how they're feeling.
How did you approach the process of blending speculative elements into a literary novel? I just think it's so fun. The problem with being an artist is that sometimes you get boxed into one thing. It may be the first thing you did, but it's not all you are. I love speculative fiction coupled with elements of historical fiction and sci-fi. Wherever stories can take me, I want to go. If somebody in a story I'm writing is doing something that isn't feasible in this realm, I'm going to expand the realm. That's what happened here. It trickled into these different plots, and I followed them.
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Berlinskyschine, Laura. "YRSA DALEY-WARD: In the poet's debut novel, The Catch, twin sisters in London believe they have reconnected with their long-deceased mother." Publishers Weekly, vol. 272, no. 14, 7 Apr. 2025, p. 15. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A835360849/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=90228bab. Accessed 17 Oct. 2025.
THE CATCH, by Yrsa Daley-Ward
Here's a dilemma. Despite its mind-bending premise, I don't actually want to talk to you about what happens in ''The Catch,'' Yrsa Daley-Ward's first novel after a poetry collection (''Bone'') and two nonfiction projects (''The Terrible'' and ''The How''). I want to talk about how it happens.
''The Catch'' follows semi-estranged twin sisters, Clara and Dempsey. When they were infants, their mother, Serene, vanished, presumed to have drowned in the Thames. As a result, both sisters were adopted, but by different families. Clara was adopted first, by a wealthy family who said that she ''appeared special right from the beginning,'' but they left behind Dempsey, who was ''wheezing and small.'' Dempsey was adopted a year later by a councilor. Now adults in their 30s, the same age as their mother when she disappeared, the two have a strained relationship. Clara's a spiraling but newly famous author launching a big book; Dempsey does clerical work and data entry.
Then Clara glimpses a woman who looks just like Serene. ''She is my mother,'' Clara says, believing her to be Serene, come back. ''My very own mother.'' Dempsey, however, sees this figure as a con woman out to manipulate her famous but disturbed sister.
It gets weirder. This discovered Serene has not aged a day in the years she has been gone. Furthermore, the events that unfold in the sisters' lives after Serene's reappearance are the same events and language found in the writing that Serene left after her death as well as the same language and writing that appears in Clara's blockbuster book, ''Evidence,'' large sections of which appear in ''The Catch'' itself.
That's the what of the novel. The how, though, is where the book reveals itself to be a rich and risky text.
Daley-Ward uses a full complement of textures to weave this book. The surreal drips into the moments of assumed sobriety, shifting the world around us as we read. To unfurl the story, she reaches for dark comedy, for drama, for poetry, for the absurd.
Meanwhile, the narrative switches between Clara's and Dempsey's perspectives, as well as passages written in Clara's novel and/or passages from Serene's journals, creating an unreliable but fascinating relationship to reality. You never quite know what is going on. It's a maneuver that's both frustrating and intoxicating -- for better or for worse, the storytelling made me feel like I was experiencing the psychosis of the characters myself.
At the center of it all lies a deliciously slippery conundrum: Who is the author here, mother or daughter? Who owns the truth? Who gets to decide it and who has to live with its consequences? Does the fact that these characters are playing out pre-written, or maybe predestined, events make it all any less real or complicated?
Thankfully, in Daley-Ward's hands, it does not. The ''book within a book'' gimmick doesn't flatten the characters or their motivations; if anything, it helps expand them, breaking open time and existence so we can better see what's inside Clara, Dempsey and Serene.
But it's not just the metaphysical play that stands out; Daley-Ward's prose also shines from the start. In the novel's opening, for instance, we follow Clara through one of her book events as she handpicks a handsome man from the book-signing line to sleep with. Back at her place, as they slip into their entanglement, Daley-Ward slips into poetry. ''Then I stare hard at the not-blue-nor-gray surf in his eyes again. I need it to carry me somewhere, anywhere,'' Daley-Ward writes as the lyrical intensity builds, eventually overwhelming the use of paragraphs and breaking into brief moments of lineated verse, usually for no more than a couplet, a tool the author employs generously throughout. The couplets seem to me, as a poet, a way to warn or remind the reader to never get too comfortable, that things might never be as they seem, that a volta could be around any corner, that the shift could happen at any time.
Not all of these experiments are so clearly successful, though. The book's ending offers up several possible conclusions. It comes off a tad messy or overgenerous.
But again, it's not the ''what happens'' that matters, it's the how. You can tell Daley-Ward is having fun playing with her language, these characters and our minds. By harnessing both a poet's heart and attention to language as well as a fresh ear for millennial humor and drama, Daley-Ward has penned a metaphysical experiment on grief, trauma, family and longing that holds all the excitement of a big summer read. The promises of Daley-Ward's debut fiction are the same as some of the book's darker motifs: It's addictive and might take a lifetime to release you.
THE CATCH | By Yrsa Daley-Ward | Liveright | 336 pp. | $28.99
Danez Smith is the author of four collections including ''Bluff,'' a finalist for the 2025 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry.
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Smith, Danez. "Metaphysical Exam." The New York Times Book Review, 29 June 2025, p. 7. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A845846466/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=4df3519d. Accessed 17 Oct. 2025.