In conversation with… Antarctic poet Elizabeth Lewis Williams

03/07/2025

We chat with Elizabeth Lewis Williams about her poetry, her ties to our flagship site, and an inspirational photograph of her father at the Stevenson Screen at Port Lockroy.

Elizabeth Lewis Williams is a Norwich-based poet and teacher, and a lover of islands and the sea. After 20 years as a school teacher, she completed an MA, followed by a PhD, in Creative Writing. Her first book, Deception Island, was made into an immersive installation in a replica Antarctic hut, and her second, Erebus, was published in 2022. She is currently working on a book of creative non-fiction on Antarctica, as well as several other Antarctic poetry projects. 

We caught up with Elizabeth to chat about her Antarctic-inspired poetry, her ties to our flagship site, and a poem dedicated to those who took readings of the Stevenson Screen at Port Lockroy.

Elizabeth outside a replica Antarctic hut (Elizabeth Lewis Williams)

First of all, you have a special link to Port Lockroy. Please tell us about that?

My father, George Lewis, worked in Port Lockroy between 1959 and 1960, before moving on to Halley Bay, and afterwards to Scott Base. Dad loved to ski, and his prized Head skis hang on the wall in the Bransfield House porch.

When we were young, he’d tell us stories about his time in Antarctica, including regular bits of advice gleaned from his experience (particularly the importance of carrying your own rucksack with supplies!)  I think if you’ve lived for five years in an environment which has so little to support human habitation, and where you can get lost in a blizzard even close to base, going out prepared becomes second nature. 

George skiing in Antarctica, 1959 (BAS Archives)

Mum, who met Dad on board a ship when they were both on the way back from New Zealand, heard more of his stories than anyone else, and shared his dream of building their own ‘Antarctic field hut’ in Shetland. The house they built there was plumbed and heated so that we had warmth and hot water through winter power cuts, with lighting provided by Tilley lamps.

The black skis at Port Lockroy belonged to George (UKAHT/Lucy Bruzzone)

Years after Dad’s early death, Mum was finally able to visit Port Lockroy (twice) – and was particularly delighted to see the stove in which he’d baked bread, and see evidence of his handwriting in some of the documents preserved there. When I went to the BAS archives to research my father’s time at Lockroy, the world seemed strangely familiar.

How has your father influenced your work and career?

Initially, the biggest influence he had was the way he shaped my perspective on the world. I never developed his capacity for science, but I did learn to love the natural world. Every walk was an expedition. He’d point things out: different kinds of stone, marks made by a glacier as it ground over a rock near our house during the last ice age, observations about the weather. He and Mum would surface from various dives with treasures from the sea. 

It was only when I started writing poetry as part of my MA, in response to an unpublished book he’d written, that my father’s time in Antarctica had a direct influence on my work. I wrote two books of poetry and completed a PhD on scientific and poetic measure in Antarctic poetry. I co-created an installation in a replica Antarctic refuge hut, which was based on one of Dad’s experiences. 

George in the Port Lockroy radio room, 1959 (BAS Archives)

From being somewhere in his stories, Antarctica – or perhaps the idea of Antarctica – became the gathering point for all sorts of important lessons about human relationships, with one another and the natural world, particularly at a time of accelerating climate change. 

Now I’m reaching the end of writing a book which explores this fascination: the different ways in which we can travel to the Antarctic, through literature, through the archives, through the imagination, as well as in person.

Would you mind sharing a few lines from something you’ve written?

This is the last part of a poem called ‘The Stevenson Screen’ which was inspired by a photograph of my father at the Stevenson Screen at Port Lockroy, and by the dedication of all those who have taken such readings in Antarctica.

At each determined hour
of the day or night,
this office: the met obs.

Screen door opened Polewards
and a man bows
before the instruments,

notes – in pencil – temperature,
humidity, atmospheric pressure;
records wind speed and direction.

Then he stands,
and with the evidence of his eyes,
takes readings of the clouds
and listens to the music of weather.

Please tell us about your two books of poetry, Deception Island and Erebus.

Deception Island was the first long poem I wrote in response to an early episode in Dad’s book, about the time he skied across a glacier to the Chilean base on Deception Island, and the welcome he received. I was struck by the haunting nature of the landscape he described, and by a story the Chileans told about one of the sheep they had brought down to provide fresh meat. 

It had escaped, but was compelled to return to base three months later because there was nothing for it to eat. Its fate highlighted the precarious nature of non-native presence in Antarctica. The material in the archives, which I looked at for my research, was fascinating - from atmospheric black and white photographs to informal base journals. I wanted to write something about Deception, which would bring the many voices of the island to life – the stones and ice, as well as human and animal life – and which would convey both the bleak history of exploitation, and more positive human scientific engagement. All in the context of the elemental conflict between earth and ocean. The book contains the poem, the extract from my Dad’s book which inspired it, some beautiful black and white photos from the archive, and two additional essays by Ieuan Hopkins and Jean McNeil.

The title of the collection, Erebus, comes from the long poem at the end of the book, which retells the story of my father’s ascent of Erebus and his lucky escape from the mountain in a blizzard. Threaded through his journey are various observations taken from James Cook’s expeditions in the Southern Ocean, and a fictitious descent into the underworld (a cave system). It’s a book about different kinds of exploration; about life on a scientific base in Antarctica during the mid years of the last century; about communication and the pursuit of knowledge; and the extraordinary Antarctic environment. It is not all based on my father’s work; the sequence of poems ‘Met Obs’ was inspired by the base journals and meteorological reports from Port Lockroy in the 1950s.

Your creative and academic work covers a wide range of forms. Do you have a favourite medium?

Not really! I find poetry a good space to work through my responses to ideas and experiences. It’s a flexible form, allowing you to hold different voices and periods together in a small space, and I love the attention to language and sound that it requires. I think my favourite creative experience so far has been the Deception Island installation because it moved from the intensity of creating the poem to a collaboration with other artists, and finally provided a space for shared storytelling.

Have you followed in your father’s footsteps and visited Antarctica? 

In one sense, yes. I had the wonderful experience of lecturing on a large cruise ship which went to the Antarctic Peninsula, and called at Port Lockroy three times. I was finally able to see the place I had imagined so intensely for so long! 

But I haven’t actually set foot on the continent – and, strangely enough, that seemed very appropriate. Standing on the deck of the cruise ship looking through my binoculars at the aerial mast at Lockroy allowed me to hold everything I had heard and imagined about the place together with the physical experience of being there, like being both inside and outside time. 

It was quite extraordinary: there was a solar parhelion (AKA a sun dog) as we drew close the first time, penguins leading the way, and as we left, an orca breached. The ship’s captain sent packages of cheese on the safety boat to the women working for UKAHT at Port Lockroy. I sent copies of my books and watched the boat carry them towards the place which had inspired so many of the poems.

Working as a lecturer and delivering workshops sounds like the best of both worlds in terms of an Antarctic experience. Was that true?

Being able to give writing workshops during the cruise felt like a real privilege, and having an active role on the cruise made the experience a richer one. The poetry and the workshops provided a space for people (including me) to process and discuss the experience of crossing the Drake Passage and entering the vast, otherworldly space of Antarctica.

Elizabeth on a cruise ship near Port Lockroy (Elizabeth Lewis Williams) 

As well as feeling awed by its astonishing scale and beauty, a lot of people felt conflicted about their presence, knowing the high carbon impact of Antarctic tourism. They were keen to explore ideas about Antarctic ambassadorship, of carrying a message home. The other tremendous benefit of working as a lecturer was that I was able to take the same journey three times, and every time was different.

Do you still have a dream destination you haven't visited?

I would dearly love to spend some time in South Georgia, soaking up the atmosphere and rooting out stories and doing some writing. My husband and I occasionally joke about submitting a joint application – as a doctor and a writer – to work at Port Lockroy, but I am happy to have come as close as I did. Our youngest daughter, however, is very keen to work there. The enthusiasm for Antarctica remains in the family!

What's next for you?

There are a host of projects waiting for attention once I’ve completed the book I’m working on. I’ve recently been made a director of Story Machine, and I’m looking forward to working with writers and learning more about publishing. 

Elizabeth is currently working on several creative projects (Elizabeth Lewis Williams) 

I’m also part of an artistic collaboration, I am Your Past, with a Colombian sound artist and a Colombian-American science journalist, which aims to put Amazonia and Antarctica in dialogue through a sequence of letters between the snow of the high Colombian Andes and the Thwaites glacier in Antarctica. These letters are threaded through with poems and sound compositions. It’s a beautiful project which we’re keen to complete, but we’ve all had other jobs and been progressing in fits and starts. Very excitingly, I am also co-editing an Antarctic edition of the poetry journal Magma, scheduled for publication in 2026.

What luxury item would you take if you were working at Port Lockroy for the season?

This is difficult! I think I’d take a supply of Colombian coffee and a coffee percolator compatible with the stove (if this could count as a single item). Then I could melt ice for water and prepare coffee to share.

Finally, what’s your favourite species of penguin?

I love the sassiness of the Adélie, but my heart is with the emperor. All that shared work of caring, the dedicated guarding of eggs throughout the winter, and their willingness to take turns, shuffling to the outside to bear the wind on their backs, giving others a chance of warmth in the midst of the colony. I think they are excellent role models!

If you are interested in finding out more about the Deception Island installation, please visit the Story Machine website, where you will also find a link to the film which played in the hut.