June’s Monthly Stories and Poems

Making a home isn’t a one-off, one-time activity, even if you live in the same place all your life. The theme for this pack is about building, maintaining and taking care of the people and places that we call home. ‘There is a kind of love called maintenance’ says U.A. Fanthorpe in the first line of her poem ‘Atlas’, chosen for this pack both our Volunteer Support Lead Julie Gaukroger and Kristin Hutchinson, who read the poem on a ward at the psychiatric hospital where she is Reader-in-residence:

‘We explored the first line at length and shared experiences and memories of appreciation for what others do for us and what we do for ourselves.’

The other poems in the pack pick up on this idea of shared experiences and undramatic acts of care and attention – mending clothes, mending walls. The prose selection is taken mainly from the books on The Reader’s Bookshelf for 2026, and show parents and carers engaged in the everyday work of bringing up children and ‘home-making’ – experiences that feel riskier, more difficult and more puzzling on the inside than they do when viewed from the outside.

 June’s selections are:

Stories & extracts

An extract from The Home-maker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher

‘A Mother’s Work’, an essay by Robin Wall Kimmerer from Braiding Sweetgrass

‘The Importance of Having Warm Feet’ by Marina Lewycka

An extract from Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Poetry

‘Atlas’ by U.A. Fanthorpe

‘Mending Wall’ by Robert Frost

‘Scaffolding’ by Seamus Heaney

‘Invisible Mending’ by C.K. Williams

By Frances Macmillan (Literature Engagement Lead at The Reader)