Billboards all along the Kennet & Avon

Well, maybe not quite, but the pressure was on - 'Kin' had to have an airing on today's Poetry Please or else, as my friend Jan pointed out, Dru Marland might be done for selling copies of 'Inking Bitterns', in which it appears, under false pretences. 

In the event it was there, tucked in amongst offerings from Thomas Hardy, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Charlotte Brontë, Wislawa Szymborska, Mark Doty, John Clare et al. How very exciting - even if it took four years from when Dru made her request.   Clearly, the mills of the Beeb grind slow.  

If you missed it and would like to hear it, follow this link. It's almost exactly half way through the programme, at 15.04 minutes in.  Or wait until next Saturday, 4th June, when it will be repeated at 11.30pm. 

As mentioned above, 'Kin' is published in Dru's 2012 illustrated anthology of nature poetry, Inking Bitterns, available from Gert Macky books, and also in my 2011 collection Communion, published by Indigo Dreams.

'Grwyne Fawr' - Another Poem from Inking Bitterns

This is me reading the first part of my three-part poem, 'Speaking Raven'. It was inspired by a visit to Patrishow in the Black Mountains last January, when my fellow-travellers and I saw two ravens flying high overhead.  Their conversation carried all the way down to us on the still, cold air.    



'Grwyne Fawr' was recently published in Dru Marland's illustrated anthology, 'Inking Bitterns' - a book of poems and pictures for wild places, published in association with Poetry Can, and available from Gert Macky books and good independent bookshops, price £5.  It will also appear with its constituent parts in my forthcoming collection, 'Map Reading for Beginners', which is due to be published by Indigo Dreams later this year.  

Illustration of Patrishow by Dru Marland

To Hetty Pegler's Tump and Selsley

Dru was off to release a few Inking Bitterns into the wilds of Gloucestershire and did I want to come too? I said I could spare a morning (with Ted in tow) and she agreed that was all it would take, so off we went.

First stop Thornbury, where Dru snapped up a copy of 'Biggles Gets His Men' in a charity shop, then Berkeley (where there are no bookshops but a soon-to-close newsagents and a pharmacy in the former pub), followed by the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust at Slimbridge.
    
We also hoped to pop into the church with its graceful spire but it was locked.  The churchyard was interesting, though,  if swampy. In contrast to the elegance of the architecture, there were some very thuggish cherubs.  I suspect they are bouncers at the Pearly Gates.

Then it was off to Hetty Pegler's Tump, the Neolithic Long Barrow at Uley, just outside Dursley.  The mound is named after Hester, wife of the the 17th century owner of the field, who died in 1694.  

We took the scenic route to the tump, which led past a quarry in the wood.  

It was pretty rainy and the ground was sodden and slippy, but the colour and geometry of rock and trees made up for that.  

Back up on the road we found ourselves in cloud, but the skies were clearing from the west and by the time we reached the tump, the day was brightening.

Is it my imagination or is there an oval, Paul Klee-esque face staring out of the stone lintel?

The entrance being much smaller than the one at Stoney Littleton - or me possibly being rather fatter - I didn't attempt to squeeze through it, but this is what it looks like inside.  

View across to the River Severn

En route to Nailsworth to drop off some books in the Yellow-Lighted Bookshop, we saw a sign for Selsley, a small village outside Stroud with a remarkable Arts and Crafts Church, and as Dru had yet to visit it, we made a brief detour.  

Look, isn't it stunning, seen through the Lych Gate with attendant jackdaws?








The last of the great Cotswold wool churches. 

Selsey's chief treasure is its windows, which date from 1862 and are the only complete set designed by Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co.  

This is one of my favourites - another Ascension, like the mediaeval window at Fairford and the stone carving in Wells Cathedral.  

And this is the beautiful West window.

There were lots of lovely Arts and Crafts touches - the delicately carved screen around the Lady Chapel, the capitals on the (rather ugly marble) columns, the altarcloth and pulpit hanging, but I'm sticking with the windows for now. 

In the churchyard, some of the more modern headstones were reminiscent of those at Mells and Partrishow.  This one is engraved with a few lines from 'Parting' by Jorge Luis Borges.

Back at the car, Ted was twiddling his paws so we let him drive us home via Nailsworth and Wotton-under-Edge (whose bookshop, unfortunately, was closed), returning somewhat later than planned ... but what a cracking day out.     

'Calling the Collie' - A Poem for Ne'er-Do-Well Dogs

Ted didn't mind inspiring this Christmas card, for Christmas just gone ... 

... though he thinks 2014's card is verging on defamation  ... 

... and as for this poem by the iniquitous Colin Brown, well, it's downright libellous!

'Calling the Collie' is from 'Inking Bitterns' - a book of poems and pictures for wild places, illustrated by Dru Marland - which is published in association with Poetry Can and available from Gert Macky books and good independent bookshops - in Bristol, this means Durdham Down Bookshop, Standfords, and Foyles, price £5. 

'Kin' - A Poem for Winter Dusks

This is me reading my poem about starlings roosting or murmurationing or whatever it is they do.  It's also about my extended family and our annual get-together in honour of Hilda Hill, my grandmother.  



'Kin' is from my 2012 collection 'Communion', published by Indigo Dreams Publishing, and also 'Inking Bitterns' - a book of poems and pictures for wild places, illustrated by Dru Marland.  It is published in association with Poetry Can and available from Gert Macky books and good independent bookshops.   

'Inking Bitterns' on Radio Bristol

Dru Marland, John Terry and I talk about 'Inking Bitterns', local wildlife, rummaging through skips and poetry on the Steve Yabsley Show.  Listenable to for the next seven days, we are on from 36:00 (33:10 if you want to listen to the Beatles 'Twist and Shout' as well and why wouldn't you?) to 57:07.  

Here are pictures from some of the poems we read:

'Inking Bitterns' - a book of poems and pictures for wild places - is published in association with Poetry Can and available from Gert Macky books and good independent bookshops - in Bristol, this means Durdham Down Bookshop, Standfords, and Foyles, price £5. 

Bitter Drinking Poets

Ooh look, bitter drinking poets - I mean Inking Bittern poets - at Halo Cafe Bar Monday last, courtesy Acoustic Night Bristol.  

John Terry

                                           Alana Farrell

Alan Summers

                                           Cathy Wilson

Colin Brown

                                                                me

and Dru Marland, who made it all happen












Come along to Can Openers at Foyles later today (Friday, 12pm) for a reprise!


'Inking Bitterns' - a book of poems and pictures for wild places, illustrated by Dru Marland - is published in association with Poetry Can and available from Gert Macky books and good independent bookshops - in Bristol, this means Durdham Down Bookshop, Standfords, and Foyles, price £5. 

Bitterning in Devizes

Bitterns are secretive birds.  If they sense they've been seen, they will point their bills directly upwards and blend in with the surrounding reeds.  This is called 'bitterning' and it's all well and good if you actually are a bittern, not so if you're a book about them.  These must be ushered into the well-deserved limelight, so whilst on a visit to Holt in Wiltshire to see our potter friend, Jan Lane, Dru Marland and I popped into Corsham and Devizes to visit a couple of bookshops. (Yes, really, they still have bookshops on the Chalk.)  

Corsham is crooked and quaint in an almost-the-Cotswolds sort of way; Devizes is a proper place.  I really like Devizes.

Couch Lane: former hospital for animals

my clever and talented friends

Is this a genuine Victorian pillar box?

Either way, Ted wasn't impressed.

Monday Market Street

Pigeons

Mission darn well accomplished

Ted says "'Inking Bitterns' - a book of poems and pictures for wild places, illustrated by Dru Marland - is published in association with Poetry Can and available from Gert Macky books and good independent bookshops - in Bristol, this means Durdham Down Bookshop, Standfords, and Foyles, price £5.  So please buy one so that I'm not reduced to foot warming duty in that draughty old bone-rattler they insist on bumping around in. Please.'