I like people and in A Friable Earth there's a lot of them - one of the first soil scientists, dead friends, Sylvester Stallone, allotment neighbours, nurses, damaged people, workmates.
Over five years the poems in the collection worked with one another - I thought I was writing about the allotment but actually the poem was about me growing older. I worried about a young homeless man sleeping in his car near my allotment gate. I remembered an old boss who was an amateur entomologist.
I wanted to get across the feeling of being dismissed for being 'badgerly' or off balance and explore some of the words used to describe old women, crate being one.
So inevitably, the poems refused to be categorised or themed - many of them are reflective, some are mini-narratives, some question the nature of the language we use to describe others, and now in my sixth decade on the earth, there are elegies.
I found a stash of letters in the loft and they became starting points. As in most of my previous collections, there is a clutch of poems that come from a visit to South Africa.
The book wouldn't be in the world without the support of Tony Ward and Angela Jarman who run Arc Publications. Like other independent poetry publishers, they keep contemporary poetry alive and available.
Now to find the readers.......
Over five years the poems in the collection worked with one another - I thought I was writing about the allotment but actually the poem was about me growing older. I worried about a young homeless man sleeping in his car near my allotment gate. I remembered an old boss who was an amateur entomologist.
I wanted to get across the feeling of being dismissed for being 'badgerly' or off balance and explore some of the words used to describe old women, crate being one.
So inevitably, the poems refused to be categorised or themed - many of them are reflective, some are mini-narratives, some question the nature of the language we use to describe others, and now in my sixth decade on the earth, there are elegies.
I found a stash of letters in the loft and they became starting points. As in most of my previous collections, there is a clutch of poems that come from a visit to South Africa.
The book wouldn't be in the world without the support of Tony Ward and Angela Jarman who run Arc Publications. Like other independent poetry publishers, they keep contemporary poetry alive and available.
Now to find the readers.......
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