Places of Poetry

Mapping the Nation in Verse

Paul Farley, Andrew McRae, Paul Farley, Andrew McRae

• Publisher: Oneworld Publications
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781786079466
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

Presenting the best poems from the nationwide Places of Poetry project, selected from over 7,500 entries

Poetry lives in the veins of Britain, its farms and moors, its motorways and waterways, highlands and beaches.

This anthology brings together time-honoured classics with some of the best new writing collected across the nation, from great monuments to forgotten byways.

Featuring new writing from Kayo Chingonyi, Gillian Clarke, Zaffar Kunial, Jo Bell and Jen Hadfield, Places of Poetry is a celebration of the strangeness and variety of our islands, their rich history and momentous present.

Table of contents

• Introduction
• The South West • Devon, Dorset, Bristol, Cornwall, Somerset, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Isles of Scilly
• Before Solstice • Will Harris
• Abbot’s Cernel • Declan McCarthy
• Welle • Kate Keogan
• Portland Stone • Sharon Phillips
• West Bay, Jurassic Coast • Gillian Penrose
• The Crack • Afra Kingdon
• Borderline • Anthony Wilson
• Hallsands • Sue Proffitt
• Wild Swimming • Bridie Toft
• With Alfred Wallis at Tate St Ives • John Lanyon
• A Dream Or No (1914) • Thomas Hardy
• Flood: Six Tweets from Golitha Falls • Helen Jagger
• As We Climbed the Slope • Julie Sampson
• Chapel on the Moor • Rebecca Gethin
• Higher Week on a November Morning • Monika Kowalczyk-Krol
• On First Spotting a Snake’s Head Fritillary • Isobel Dixon
• Exeter Interrupted • Jennifer Keevill
• The River • Anthony Watts
• This Somerset • Sam Smith
• Porlock (1798) • Robert Southey
• Hartlake • Ama Bolton
• The Haruspex • Neil Rollinson
• Art and Nature. The Bridge Between Clifton and Leigh Woods (1836) • William Lisle Bowles
• Balloons • Deborah Harvey
• Stroudwater Navigation • J. L. M. Morton
• Wales
• Got • Jo Bell
• The Mountain over Aberdare (1942) • Alun Lewis
• Aberfan: 9.10 a.m. 21/10/1966 • Philippa Davies
• Coal Valley • Hilary Taylor
• Industrial Heritage • Paul McGrane
• Views from Newport Wetlands • Maureen Fenton
• Is Coed • Laura Wainwright
• Thoughts on a King’s Idyll in City of the Legion (Caerleon) • Peter Gaskell
• Gentlemen • Jeremy Dixon
• Ogmore • Fawzia Muradali Kane
• Worm’s Head (Pen Pyrod) • Jim Young
• At Carreg Frân • James Roberts
• Brenin y Brenhinoedd • Erika Guttmann-Bond
• The Water-fall (1655) • Henry Vaughan
• Lithic • Kathy Miles
• Across the Mountain • Alwyn Marriage
• Winter in Snowdonia • Freddie Jones
• Caernarfon • Gillian Clarke
• Mamiaith (Mother Tongue) • Ness Owen
• Growing Up • Eabhan Ní Shuileabháin
• Choughs • Joanna Ingham
• Fog in Llanbadrig • Anne Phillips
• In the Valley of the Elwy (1874–77) • Gerard Manley Hopkins
• Border Language (Iaith Ffin) • Steven Thomas-Spires
• Northern Ireland
• Rain, or a Local Poet Long Gone Returns Home • Jeffrey Thomson
• The World Over • Moyra Donaldson
• Bangor, County Down, December 2010 • Ross Thompson
• Longboat at Portaferry • Siobhan Campbell
• Riverdance • Morna Sullivan
• The Mountains of Mourne (1896) • Percy French
• The Barracks • Oliver Mort
• from The Prospect of the Lake Erne (1791) • James Creighton
• Sweet Spot • Trish Bennett
• Unsolved • Katherine Duffy
• from The Giant’s Causeway (1811) • William Hamilton Drummond
• Carnlough Bay • Rosie Johnston
• The Weather Station • Gary Allen
• Ebb Tide • Ian Watson
• Admission, on Leaving the Port of Belfast, 1988 • Angela Graham
• Scotland
• The Curfew Bell • Karen Jane Cannon
• Lines on Revisiting a Scottish River (1828) • Thomas Campbell
• Crianlarich • Mandy Macdonald
• On Scaring a Wild-Fowl at Loch Turit (1793) • Robert Burns
• Arduaine • Mary Wright
• Rusty Potato Digger • Seth Crook
• This Being Human • Veronica Aaronson
• Arisaig • Chris Waters
• The Road to Skye • Suji Kwock Kim
• The Standing Stones of Callanish • M. E. Muir
• Ancient Professions of the Highlands • Sarah Davies
• Instructions for a Journey • Lynda Turbet
• Towers of Orkney • Diane Mulholland
• Gunnister Man • Jane Baston
• from Don Juan, Canto X (1824) • George Gordon Byron (Lord Byron)
• Earlsferry Beach Cricket Match, Elie, 20 July 1.30 p.m. • Peter Burrows
• In a Little Bar on Rose Street • Joe Williams
• Yorkshire and the North East • Yorkshire, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear, County Durham
• a northerly aspect • Kayo Chingonyi
• Sycamore Gap • Zoe Mitchell
• At Cocklawburn • Richard Sharland
• On Lindisfarne, from Marmion (1808) • Sir Walter Scott
• Battle Hill to Me • James Bridgewood
• An Ode to a Wall • Rowan McCabe
• Used to Be • Rebecca Goodwin
• Angel of the North • Geoff Holland
• Askew • Brian Johnstone
• Cinders – Carlin How • Paul Hyland
• Bram Stoker Takes a Turn Around Whitby Town, 2019 • Natalie Scott
• In Scarborough • Wendy Pratt
• Hornsea Beach • Alison Riley
• Lines Written at Thorp Green (c.1840–45) • Anne Brontë
• Above Middleton • Kathleen Jones
• Slack Wife Gill • Marilyn Longstaff
• Ordnance Survey One Inch Map of Great Britain. Sheet 90. Wensleydale • Sarah Watkinson
• Craven • Julian Turner
• Before the Brontës Saw Us • John Hepworth
• from Bowton’s Yard (1866) • Samuel Laycock
• Róisín Bán • Ian Duhig
• Merrie City • Laura Potts
• River Dove • Rachel J. Fenton
• Seen in Sheffield • Cora Greenhill
• Paragon Station and the Emigrants’ Waiting Room • Julie Corbett
• The Big Mouth of the River Humber • Johanna Boal
• Doggerland • Mike Bell
• The East • Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk
• Evensong • Jen Hadfield
• Pages You Lose to the River • Elisabeth Sennitt Clough
• Chalk Stream Warnings Issued to Environment Agency at 16h30 on Tues 8 Oct 2019 • Alice Willitts
• The Cambridge Lodes • Neil Leadbeater
• Flag Fen • Clare Marsh
• Flatland • Christopher Kraken
• The Pout’s Complaint Upon the Draining of the Fens (c.1619) • Penny of Wisbech
• Redcastle Furze • Julia Webb
• Thorns • Helen Ivory
• Seeing it Differently • Kate Young
• Snowdrops • Margaret Payne
• The Icknield Way Reaches the Coast • Chris Michaelides
• Skeins • Jon Wynne
• Ecclesia • Daniel Page
• Corbel Angel, Southwold Museum • Chrissie Gittins
• from By the North Sea (1880) • A. C. Swinburne
• Sea Fret • Greg Freeman
• The Aldeburgh Herring • Alison Brackenbury
• from The Borough, Letter XXII ‘The Poor of the Borough. Peter Grimes’ (1810) • George Crabbe
• Eyes Down • Pamela Johnson
• Two Rivers • Florence Cox
• Tollesbury Fleet • David Canning
• A13, Trunk Road of the Free • Sarah Reeson
• London and the South East • Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, West Sussex, East Sussex, Middlesex, Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Kent, Oxfordshire, Hertfordshire, Middlesex, Surrey
• Dover Strait • Liz Howes
• Love Letter to Rose Cottage of Curiosities • Jo Eden
• from Poly-Olbion (Kent) (1612) • Michael Drayton
• Romney Marsh Extinction • Sharon McCarron
• On Winchelsea Beach • Geoff Marshall
• Long Man of Wilmington • Lizzie Ballagher
• Lookout over Happy Valley, Rusthall • Jemma Borg
• from ‘Beachy Head’ (1807) • Charlotte Smith
• The Ending Was in the Beginning • Richard Williams
• Things to do around Southsea • Maggie Sawkins
• The Rowan Scry • Lia Brooks
• Selborne in Spring • Jack Cooper
• Windmill Hill • Mark Antony Owen
• White Horse • Kate Innes
• Ridgeway • Ali Jones
• Bronze Age Settlement, Foxley Farm • Catherine Baker
• Knebworth Park • Katherine Gallagher
• Holi in Ruislip • Nazneen Ahmed
• Heath Row • John Greening
• Cape Fear • Alice Kavounas
• Flat Suburbs, S.W., in the Morning (1916) • D. H. Lawrence
• Van Gogh in Brixton • Shaun Traynor
• The Gentrification of Ruskin Park • Claire Collison
• A Costa in Deptford • John Davison
• Elegy for Victorian Gasworks • Sarah Doyle
• Oval Time • Zaffar Kunial
• The Midlands • Herefordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Worcestershire, Warwickshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Rutland
• Navigating Diglis • Isabel Galleymore
• Hidden in Plain Site • Lesley Ingram
• Herefordshire Apples • Sara-Jane Arbury
• Owl Feather, Richard’s Castle • Jane Lovell
• Scale • Jacqui Rowe
• from A Shropshire Lad (1919) • A. E. Housman
• Wrought • Lee Armstrong
• Birmingham Trams • Emilie Lauren Jones
• Geese above Highfield Road • Oliver Comins
• The Rain in Kettering • Mark Fiddes
• Burthorp [i.e. Bowthorpe] Oak (1835) • John Clare
• Blotoft Halt • Rennie Parker
• Treasure Ground • Clare Best
• Skegness Wake • Jo Dixon
• Nottinghamshire Sheet XXIX N.W. OS Edition of 1920 • Di Slaney
• A Nightjar • Jack Underwood
• Long Eaton • Zoe King
• How to Make a Carillon • Kathy Pimlott
• Culling Season • Scarlett Ward
• Milepost on the Trent and Mersey • Judi Sutherland
• The Slip Caster of Stoke • John Lancaster
• Tunstall • Diana Cant
• Magpie Mine • Naomi Crosby
• Sonnet 3. Written at Buxton in a Rainy Season (1799) • Anna Seward
• Mam Tor • Cheryl Pearson
• The North West • Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Merseyside
• Late • Victoria Ekpo
• Anfield • Sharon Jones
• The Ghosts of Liverpool 8 • Oz Hardwick
• Rose Hill Station • Joyce Reed
• My Eyes • Maya Chowdhry
• Planning Permission Granted • Hilary Robinson
• The Lancashire Hills (1863) • E___h W___n
• Pendle Hill • Year 5, Read St John’s Primary School
• Crows • Katerina Neocleous
• Sandgrown • Kathy Finney
• Blackpool Pleasure • Clayton Hirst
• Battle Hymn of the Manx Pastoralist (John Dog’s Meadow) • Boakesey
• If You Were Walney Lighthouse and I Cockersands • Sarah Hymas
• Transpennine Express from Grange-Over-Sands • Maggie Reed
• The Shieling (1917) • Edward Thomas
• Accent • Kyra Pollitt
• Thistles on Dalton Moor • Colette Lawlor
• Skelwith Force • Kerry Darbishire
• Raw Day, Below Robin’s Fold • Margaret Lewis
• Mayburgh Henge • Heather Lane
• The River Eden, Cumberland (1835) • William Wordsworth
• Acknowledgements