National Poetry Day

To celebrate National Poetry Day we decided to take a day trip to Marsden. Why Marsden? Well it is the village where Simon Armitage was born and brought up, they do seem to be promoting poetry in the pubs and shops, and it's a little place in Yorkshire that we had never been.

So, without further ado, we hopped on a train to Huddersfield and changed there for Marsden, arriving about mid-day. We were pleasantly surprised by the location, a village cum small town in a basin of green hills. Just below the railway station the Huddersfield Narrow Canal wends its way between Huddersfield and Ashton-Under-Lyne, crossing the Pennines by means of 74 locks and the Standedge Tunnel.

We found Marsden, on a beautiful autumn Thursday, to be a sleep hollow. There were a few hill walkers passing through, locals walking dogs, the occasional cyclist, but the best buzz by far was in the Riverhead Tap where we settled for lunch and a pint.

 After lunch we took to the streets to search for poems which had been displayed in the shop windows.

 This is just one of the many poems we found

 Railway and canal run side by side at this point.

We took the tow path walk (15min each way) to the entrance to the Standedge Tunnel.

 Goodby, Marsden after a great little visit.

Later the muse did descend. Here is my poem set out a la Marsden shop window poetry.

FROM ASTEROID TO ARMITAGE

In year dot, well before dinosaurs

When the earth was not much more than a fluid snowflake

And protozoa had to cling to pondweed

And baffled molluscs lived and died without knowing why,

An orbiting satellite, an un-mined asteroid

solid as a diamond brick, black as anthracite,

The size of the Great Pyramid of Giza,

Mystifyingly shucked off its course

And began to hurtle through the firmament

In the general direction of down.

Down, down, down it fell

Blazing through the heavens

Down down down, casting a momentary shadow,

before blinding the icy soup,

Down down down, with a blasting punch

That ripped into unseen sphagnum,

Blitzed spirogyra, and annihilated all the, who knows what,

sensory inhabitants of moss, that might have clocked its brilliance.

It fell like God-plop onto a slop of earth,

In a rise of steam, in a hiss of vapor, in a press

Of unheard sound, that wouldn't have been out of place

in Bank Bottom Mill. Death interrupted life.

And a great hole smashed through the liquid slush,

and blasted into smithereens smaller than protons.

And it was gone, a flash, a explosion, then nothing.

A chip off a planet’s block,

Or so the legend goes, that made a dint where otherwise

There might have been a mountain.

Eons later, eons and eons later, the locals called that place

Den o’ t’ Mars, knowing that the lay of their land had been

Moulded by some extraterrestrial collision.

Marsden to you and me.

They passed on the secret down the generations,

Druids whispered it to trees,

Poets came.

There you have it. Where shall we go to next? I have a hankering to go to Holmfirth, I did spend the morning with poet friends at Sheffield Library on Saturday. It is so good to mingle now and then. David and I went to the Civic Theatre in Barnsley last night. It was what they call a Scratch night. Basically would be drama buffs trying out their abstract work on a freebie audience. We did have a laugh, pity the chip shop was closed when we came out, a bag of chips would have been the highlight of the evening. We ended up getting one packet of crisps out of the vending machine at the bus station, and sharing that, it didn't quite top the bill.

So, till next time dear reader, I hope you are well and have more exciting things to do than eat a packet of crisps. Happy days!

Love and hugs,

Jane x

Anthology of Yorkshire Poetry

Well, lovely people, Spring has sprung, and with it I feel my strength coming back after months of ill health. Not only that but I am thrilled to bits to have a poem in the Anthology of Yorkshire Poety, published by Valley Press. Click the link and see for yourselves, I am in the midst of exulted company, Carol Ann Duffy, our Poet Laureate to name drop just one. This has been great for my moral, which I have to say has been at an all time low. So, it is onwards and upwards from here.

As to the onwards and upwards I have been working on my second novel, which after dozens of re-writes over a number of years I now consider to be finished. Yeah!

   

Watch this space for updates on my poetry too.

A few weeks ago Simon Armitage came to Barnsley to give a talk about his work. It was one event I could not miss, and what a splendid evening of poetry it was. Of course I am in love with Simon Armitage, and can't understand anyone who isn't.

The other activity that has consumed me of late is 'heir hunting,' and to that end David and I have been trailing various graveyards around Barnsley looking for trace of my relatives. Well we have been very successful. Only two or three miles away from where we live is Elsecar, and there we found the grave of my Great, Great Grandmother and Grandfather, Ellen and Joseph Royston. In the same graveyard, that of Holy Trinity Church, is my Great, Great, Great, Grandmother and Grandfather, Sarah and George Royston, plus children they had, one of which, Walter Royston, is named on the grave as having died in Canada. So looks like I may have relations over there too. In Monk Bretton we found the grave of my Great Grandmother and Granddad, Annie Elizabeth and Arthur Clarke. 

So now I really do feel that I have returned to my gene pool.

I have to say, I did shed a tear. It is a strange feeling meeting the past in this way.

I now know that I come from at least four generations of Barnsley coal miners.

No silver spoon as yet!

I am now going to practice my pitch for my poetry which I will put before publishers in the near future.

I hope all is well with you, and that you are feeling the wonderful effect of Spring too.

I promise to write again soon to keep you up to date with my life around Barnsley, and beyond.

Love and hugs,

Jane x