Poems in a Garden and the Graveyard Shift

One of the most enjoyable things about poetting in the summer months are the beautiful places you get to read in, such as the Polygon communal garden. This was thanks to Lizzie, the proprietor of Heron Books, who arranged an invitation for me and fellow Bristol poets, Bob Walton and Jo Eades, to share our poems there during the Clifton and Hotwells Open Gardens weekend.

The garden was reclaimed by residents from longtime neglect, overrun by brambles and bindweed, but although it now looks rather gracious, there's a wild patch and a mini-meadow. And poetry!   

The audience looks a bit sparse in this photo, but there were actually more than thirty people spread out through the garden. (We were glad of Bob's mic.)

The last poetry walk the IsamBards held before lockdown was one around Arnos Vale in March 2020. We've often mentioned it as a favourite between ourselves, but it's taken us more than four years to organise a rerun - or rather, re-amble. 

The forecast was dodgy all week, but improved the closer we got to the appointed hour, and by the time we'd parked in the street next to the top gate and wandered down to the East Lodge  through sumptuous summer overgrowth, it was fine, if a little breezy. 

One of the especially enjoyable things about poetry walks in Arnos Vale is that the poems are interspersed with information from one of the guides, in this instance Alix, an English teacher at nearby St Mary Redcliffe School. 

Our first stop was the memorial to the stillborn, who, in previous decades, had been buried without ceremony or respect and often even the knowledge of their parents. I read my pantoum 'Small Lives', which is dedicated to my late godmother, Betty, and her son, Richard, who was stillborn in Bristol in the mid-1950s and who might well be buried here at Arnos Vale. Aways an emotional one for me to get through, especially in conjunction with poems by my fellow IsamBards that remember similar losses.

Pameli reading at the Matthews' tomb

mackerel skies

After the performing was done, there was cappucino and cake in the cafe, followed by a wander back up the path to the car. 

Forsooth, shut up now poets, it's time to go, says Cwtch.

My final poetry outing for June (so far) consists of three poems from my forthcoming collection, 'Love the Albatross', newly posted on the website iamb ~ poetry seen and heard, in written form and recorded. Thanks very much to Mark Owen for including them. You can read/hear them here.

Strangers' Burial Ground and Birdcage Walk

If there's something of a funereal feeling to some of these posts lately, well, it is winter. Also, as previously mentioned, my fellow IsamBards and I are engaged in a new project, namely writing for our forthcoming poetry walks around Arnos Vale. And this is all the excuse I need to get stuck into visiting some of the smaller graveyards and cemeteries around Bristol as well. (Which I've always loved doing, to be honest, but how I have Permission.)

One obscure burial ground I was unaware of until very recently is the Strangers' Burial Ground in Cliftonwood, so called because it was much used by visitors to the Bristol Hotwell, which was viewed in the late 18th century as the last resort of the incurable (but now known to have been so polluted as to be toxic). I even struggled to work out where it is online. 

However, compared with the arduousness of finding a parking place in Clifton, locating the site on foot was a doddle. (It's on Lower Clifton Hill, opposite the junction with Bellevue.) This is its impressive side wall. 

But - and here's the Disappointment - if my photos are all a bit long distance and crap, it's because the gate was locked. 

Must try to find out when it opens to the public.

A few minutes' walk away is the much better known Birdcage Walk, a pathway lined with pleached limes that leads through the churchyard of St Andrew's, which was Clifton's parish church until it was bombed on the first night of the Bristol Blitz, 24th November 1940. 

All that remains of St Andrew's

First, though, a mission, which was to locate the grave of Bristol poet, Anne Yearsley, a local milkwoman who turned out to have a gift for writing poetry, and who was patronised by Hannah More (until they fell out). Thanks to a tip-off on Twitter as to its approximate location - to the south of the ruined Church, in the right hand corner, near the road - this took all of five minutes.

Anne died in 1806. She's perhaps best remembered for her 1788 Poem on the Inhumanity of the Slave-Trade. 

Near Anne Yearsley's was the first of several gravestones that caught my attention. Well, a pair, in fact. 

It's dedicated to William Bridges (baptized 1717), his son, John, who was a soap boiler on Hotwells Road and who died in 1830, aged 70, and John's wife Sarah, who predeceased him in 1820, aged 53.






Adjacent is the gravestone commemorating their children:

Sarah, dd 1794, aged 1
John, dd 1803, aged 10
William, dd 1809, aged 14
Sarah, dd 1815, aged 11
Elizabeth, dd 1816, aged 12
James, dd  Feb 1817, aged 19
Maryann, dd June 1817, aged 10
William, dd 1824, aged 15
Thomas, dd 1828, aged 29
  
William and Sarah each lost the child named after them ... twice. 

I headed for the more picturesque part of the graveyard, which is in an interesting state of maintenance - ie part clipped and cared for, part wild and overgrown - and thus providing a variety of habitats for wildlife. 

I like the overgrown parts best, although it does make reading or even spotting the gravestones difficult. 

Down the far (tidier) end, I found some more sad stories. 

This is the gravestone of Margaret Rogers and two of the young children she had with her husband, James, in the 1830s; also, James and his second wife, Mary, and two of their children, all of whom died in the 1840s. I think the fact that the children's ages are counted in years, months, and even weeks in one case, gives the lie to the notion that the death of a child was somehow easier to bear in earlier centuries, when death in infancy and childhood was more common than it is now.

The grave of Selena Theodosia, who died in 1803, aged three months. Let's hope that the lack of companions on her headstone means that her parents were able to rebuild their lives elsewhere. 

Sacred to the memory of Ann, daughter of William and Ann Waters, who died Oct 10^th 1833, aged 9 years.

Also of Keturah, sixth daughter of the above, who died March 14^th 1847, aged 3 years

Also of Robert, eldest son of the aforesaid who was accidentally drowned at Chepstow, August 19^th 1850, aged 20 years

Also of George, their third son, who was accidentally drowned near Shirehampton, the 19^th of April 1864, aged 29 years

After a long and painfull illness, the aforesaid Ann Waters died 26^th January 1868, aged 67 years

William himself died in Shirehampton in 1877, aged 77 years

Some of the gravestones are lettered in moss ... 

... others so weathered they look like barely started jigsaw puzzles ...

... whose stories won't last another winter. 

By now I was immersed in the past and being reminded of some of the wonderful books of my childhood, by authors such as Leon Garfield and Joan Aiken ... 

...  in no small part, I think, due to the yellow foliage of the limes, which was bright even in the failing afternoon light.

Goldney House and Birdcage Walk

Another day, another house connected with the slave trade. This is Goldney House in Clifton.

It was built for the Goldney family, who profited from the manufacture of brass manillas and other items traded for slaves in Africa. 

We were there for the poetry reading section of the Clifton and Hotwells Labour Party fundraiser. And to commemorate the late Bristol-based novelist and poet Helen Dunmore, who was herself a member.

First, though, an exploration of the gardens ... 

... including the shell grotto which is still as creepy as I first found it decades ago.

I was reading poems in the Orangery with Bob Walton and Elizabeth Parker - a few of our own to start with, and then a few of Helen's.

It's a rather grand space. You might remember it from  the second episode of series 3 of Sherlock. Sadly no actor associated with that show was there today.

When everyone had been sufficiently delighted, we walked back to the car ...

... along Birdcage Walk, which, funnily enough, is the title of Helen Dunmore's final novel, and which I shall now elevate to the top of the book mountain next to my bed. 

Just time to fling a passing greeting to my second favourite mulberry tree. Must remember to make some more mulberry and almond vodka this summer.