About
What words are waiting to be unearthed beneath the surface of our city?
What might the caves teach us about the deep relationship between the people of Nottingham and the natural world?
If our ancient sandstone cave walls could speak, what might they say?
In May 2026, Nature Poet Laureate Cara Thompson led a group of intrepid poets into the Nottingham Caves. Their quest - to explore the subterranean landscape and produce a creative response.
We were delighted to partner with Nottingham City of Caves and be joined by Archeologist Susan Rawlings. Her insightful tour provided a context to the caves, and Cara’s creative prompts helped the participants travel deeper into their creative interpretation.
The talented poets featured in this anthology are: Cara Thompson, Helen Addis, Marjie Griffiths, Rehannah Mian, Sarah Noon, Dream Seventeen and Pascal Verheul.
Unearthed
All rights reserved.
© Nottingham UNESCO City of Literature, 2026.
The copyright of individual works remains with the authors.
Published by Nottingham UNESCO City of Literature
The works in this anthology were created during the ‘Unearthed: A Cave Poetry Experience’ workshop with Nottingham Nature Poet Laureate Cara Thompson and City of Caves archaeologist Susan Rawlins, with support from Wasafiri Magazine and the National Justice Museum
7 - Mother Unearthed / Cara Thompson
8 - Interview with a cave / Helen Addis
10 - Mother Well / Marjie Griffiths
11 - Tig Guocobauc / Rehannah Mian
12 - The House at the Bottom of Drury Hill / Rehannah Mian
13 - Cave Children / Rehannah Mian
14 - The Darkness Buried / Rehannah Mian
16 - Upstairs/Downstairs / Sarah Noon
17 - It's a Death Trap down here / Dream Seventeen
18 - The humans are coming again / Dream Seventeen
19 - Cave – Question: Answer / Dream Seventeen
20 - Waterfetching / Pascal Verheul
21 - Two-way Reflections / Pascal Verheul
22 - Resounding Voices / Pascal Verheul
23 - As one / Pascal Verheul
Mother Unearthed
I remember the strike of the axe, the wound that bloomed like a wildflower in my side.
There was no knock. No invitation. Only the relentless, helpless thumps of a babbling creature, pawing at my hip for shelter. Before I knew it, I was a mother: my skin, a wall; my womb, a city.
I swallowed a millennium of first and final breaths, watered peeling lips as they spilled their secrets.
Now, as I lie hear, quiet and barren, all I ask of you is this:
Remember me. Remember my hollowing, my water. my echo, and remember my shoulders, on which your city still stands.
Cara Thompson
Interview with a cave.
Q
Did you know you are part of the culture of Nottingham?
A
What is Nottingham?
Oh, Tig Guocbauc, City of Caves.
Yes of course.
Q
Would you rather stay as you are or change with time?
A Thinking..
If I stay the same it's one point in time. If I change it's my story.
But think of me, think of us, when you make changes Did you really need a shopping centre?
In hindsight, you didn't, did you?
Q
What do you like best about visitors?
A
Being appreciated
Being talked about
Having poems written about me
Q What do you like least about visitors?
A It's a personal space thing. I don't like being rubbed.
But I can get my own back by dropping sand into visitors' hair.
Helen Addis
Mother Well
He will ascend without the need for wings
For now, he fills the hollows of this space: a fragile life and fleeting light he brings into the darkness of this lonely place.
Whilst he is here, I’ll guard him from all harms, enfolded in this cradle carved of stone
My depths: these cool and dark embracing arms, where he may rest as one by love made known
I cannot know what dangers wait up there beyond the pinprick light of life above; for now I hold him in my darkling care, the ambience and constancy of love.
And when he goes, I’ll echo: bare, alone. The child will not return once he is grown.
Marjie Griffiths
Tig Guocobauc
Where nature has begun to carve I will go.
I will take my flint and scrape the walls, discover what the rainwater wants me to find.
I had never wondered what lay beyond the rock, never thought to break it open to reveal what sleeps. But this gap invites me to be curious, to dig deeper and listen to its heartbeat.
Rehannah Mian
The House at the Bottom of Drury Hill
I never dreamed that they would bury my house.
The noise of the dog deafens me.
The cart rumbles over the cobbles, while in this tiny courtyard I wash the grease from my clothes.
What dreams I have
The dirty water seeps into the sandstone floor, where the caves below bury our children’s hopes in darkness
The clouds move over the sun I dream.
Rehannah Mian
Cave Children
It’s dark down here
There’s blood on the walls
I wanted to stay in the sun
My fingers slip down the crumbling, wet stone
When will this nightmare be done?
Come see us here while we stand in this form, for we wear away day by day. And each time we meet we carve a new shape, is that why they hide us away?
Mian
Rehannah
The Darkness Buried
Pressure created the sandstone.
Crushed into involuntary form
Shaped by intrusion, year after year
They shine their light into the shadows and find me hollowed
Held up by false foundations they forced me to rely on
The entrance is sealed now, hiding what does not wish to be seen. You were never invited to dig deeper, to carve out my core.
I’m exposed, so now I weaken.
I used to see what I wanted to see: the meadows, rivers, and sky.
They blinded me with walls, and left me in darkness.
The light reveals fresh water, lying still, ordered and calm.
Once giving life to everyone, now serving only the wealthy
To find my strength, you must scratch deep
Once exposed, it will crumble too
The Earth’s vibrations built my foundations. Your vibrations break them.
Some things must stay hidden if they are to be safe. Down in the depths, where no one can touch them.
I was created by a single event in time
Trapped with what was never mine
I will take it from you, and keep it sealed
Rehannah Mian
Upstairs / Downstairs
Busy busy people, ignorant of history below, Fast and mindless building up and up
Capitalism: Consume, Money: Make it
Sell it Use it Abuse it
Spend all your time working and striving, Concrete, brick, leaf and bark
Fake strength and structure
Crumbling Walls
Texture and Memory
Ancient Worn Pebbles
Archeological Ancestry
Slow Time in its natural state Formless
A place just to be Sandstone and Rain
Quiet Strength to Outlast Us All Distributes Energy Evenly
Echoes of Voices, Ghosts of the Past.
A Sandstone Matrix.
Sarah Noon
It’s a Death Trap down here
‘Dark and dirty, dead rodents and gutter waste'
It's a death trap down here
'The adults go in- we stay near the hole, it's dangerous'
It's a death trap down there
‘Quiet silent tonight we rendezvous in 3 days'
It's a death trap down here
'If they won’t let us in the morning then me soak them at night’
It's a death trap down here
‘Cramped, my feet have no space to stand between Grandpa, Grandma, my nine older siblings, mam and dad’
It's a death trap down here
‘Rumbling sand trickling with each bang, hiding away, '
It's a death trap down here
‘watch the bottom step, don't break the wine racks’
It's a death trap down here
‘small hole on the sandstone ceiling was for 16th century malting, there's nearly over 1000 man-made caves ’
It's a death trap down here.
But it’s a place we live and survive.
The humans are coming again
I hear them again
A rumbling clackity clack clack of turning wheels
Soon after swinging of a pickaxe
Here we go again.
Gather the berries and golden fruit,
Pack the leaves and hides of cotton leather
Tell your fellow Fae the humans need more room.
The burning of oil flickered scent
Invade the nostrils as wisps of smoke jump out, brother’s breaths extinguish the trace of our fires.
Mother insists, hurried whisper:
Brush up the pixie dust fallen from horns into pouches,
Leave not a speck, nor fur tuff on the barron stone slate
We disappear further into Earth.
The two footed naked apes hack out the wall of our living room.
I relieve any lingering glamour
As we leave only pots and pans forged with clay Father reminds us never reveal yourself,
Never reveal your name
Tell your fellow Fae, The humans are coming again
Cave – Question: Answer
Question: Does it hurt?
When you are flattened down, when you are re-shaped and moulded into man ’ s desires and needs? Does it feel like you lose a part yourself when the sandstone erodes away? But there is no familiar soothing ocean to ease the pain, just cold metal, cruel hands, chipping away. Does it hurt knowing the secrets, not being able to tell anyone? Or hurt to know those you housed are pushed out to the edges of society?
Answer: Should it hurt?
To see humans repeat the same path of discrimination or grit their teeth to climb down a well, sweat pouring over their faces as they carve themselves a place? Would it hurt you to help the poor in need? Do you laugh, take pity on fools full of greed? When scar lined palms beat the hide, leave their barely to rot - re-shape into a living commodity? Should it hurt to be a sanctuary?
Waterfetching
The nooks aren’t slippy-wet… I thought they would be. I cling close to this gritty wall, my fingers and toes far as can go, but this silly bag offs my balance. It’s a wobbly world, but I’m braver than it - I climb the trees the others won’t!
Stip-step, I get it, it’s a ladder, up and down a castle tower, like a story knight. No armour, though… It’s dark enough to tell myself otherwise. Oh… It’s wet now, I’m here. I’d have climbed longer if there had been more tower to climb, well, a well, that’s a jape Scrubbing and fishing - what kind of work do the others do? Scrub Fish
Pascal Verheul
Two-way Reflections
Hustle, bustle, trodding on, Metal squares and voices
Flutter together in laugher
And longing.
Tracks firmly planted;
The people follow them to Unknowing, the grooves of habits, Life lived partly.
Grass soundlessly sprouts, Few have ears to hear
The sun-bathing leaves
Shadowed by man ’ s misfocus.
Hush, halt, sitting down, Walls rest and sands
Flutter together in whisps And waning.
Paths timely walked;
The air saunters through Uncaring, the grooves of Past efforts, dug fully.
Water patiently gathers, Few have sense to see
These pondering basins
Don’t rush as we do
Pascal Verheul
Resounding Voices
“They’ve got me climbing down the dark,”
Bouncing off footholds and Tense water flats, ripple-free but For the words returned.
“They’ve got me climbing down the dark,”
“We’re here because it must be done,”
Caught in fumes that tear the eyes
Thick enough to hold lost tongues.
“They’ve got me climbing down the dark,”
“We’re here because it must be done,”
Etched into jobless faces, stirring blood,
“Shin deep in stench for what?”
“They’ve got me climbing down the dark,”
“I’m not wanted up above,”
Clung unto the furthest walls,
“We’re here,” “shin deep in stench,” “down the dark.”
“They’ve got me climbing down the dark,”
Guided words illuminate the past, voices
Long-burried bubble through the porous sand,
“It takes a moment to adjust to the light.”
Pascal Verheul
As one
I am the earth, Its roots, entangling where I Step, touch, breathe, My footsteps will stand Long beyond me.
Iam the earth, Within me there’s space For hiding myself and Treasures banal and lush alike; I’ll bring the in, out.
Iam the earth, The wall before me, gritty And malleable, chips away At my hands, sticks, and stone, I’ll hollow it out.
Istep inside, The earth is me. There’s no going back, For better or for worse, I am the earth.
Pascal Verheul
Thank You
I would like to thank Wasafiri Magazine, Nottingham City of Caves and Nottingham UNESCO City of Literature for supporting the Unearthed workshop and for making this powerful collection of cave-inspired works possible.
Last but not least, my deepest thanks go to all of the incredible writers who have contributed their time, words and imaginations to this collection, and given voice to the unassuming heroes who echo beneath our city: the caves. I hope that this collection can be enjoyed by anyone with a curiosity about Nottingham’s rich natural history, and inspire them to see our city of caves in a new light.
Cara Thompson
Wasafiri Writer in Residence 2025-26 / Nottingham Nature Poet Laureate
Wasafiri is the UK’s leading magazine for international contemporary writing Launched in 1984, it is now renowned for publishing some of the world’s most distinguished writers.
The Nottingham Nature Poet Laureate programme is a creative initiative by Nottingham City of Literature to explore the environment and combat climate anxiety through the arts.
What words are waiting to be unearthed beneath the surface of our city?
What might the caves teach us about the deep relationship between the people of Nottingham and the natural world?
If our ancient sandstone walls could speak, what might they say?
Join seven poets on a journey beneath the bustling city of Nottingham into the ancient City of Caves in Unearthed. Featuring poetry from Cara Thompson, Helen Addis, Marjie Griffiths, Rehannah Mian, Sarah Noon, Dream Seventeen and Pascal Verheul.
