Reviews:
This beautiful and, at times, elegiac collection concerns itself with the liminal: coastal spaces, estuaries with their 'argument of water and ground', the borderland between secular and sacred. It acknowledges our own fragility and that of the earth itself, hearing the 'warning trembling in a curlew's echo', while celebrating what anchors us: the tang of salt on the sea breeze, the weather, the seasons, an ancient carved cross, and the 'small change of shells'. These poems are closely attuned to the ways in which we make sense of the world and how we access its meanings through various mediums, from weather forecasts to prayer. The poems linger over the capacity of language to hold our memories, our stories, our experience of being - so that words become portals into other lives and places, forging complex connections across time and space. [Dr Penny Bradshaw, Associate Professor of English Literature at the University of Cumbria.] The terror and enchantment of the sea flows through these poems - in all its immense similitude and infinite variety of weather and mood, from the loss it exacts from communities, to the songs and cries of bird and mortal, engaging with storm clouds and tides. Halsall captures the loneliness, the yearning of the sea. [Dr Frances Ward, Author, Poetry Editor: Theology] |
The Weather Door by Dr Martyn Halsall
This is Martyn Halsall's second full collection of poetry. The poems explore the tidal margins of the British Isles, the liminal space between earth and ocean, where weather can change from fair to foul in an instant. There are poems of shipwreck, poems that explore the lives of those who live near the sea or get their living from it, and poems that are an elegy for a disappearing way of life and wild creatures on the edge of extinction. |
Following Teisa
by Judi Sutherland
Teisa is an ancient name for the River Tees – one of England’s great rivers. Judi Sutherland follows an unknown 18th century female poet, Anne Wilson, on a journey along its banks, from sheep grazed moors and lead mines, past spectacular water falls and industrial wastelands to the river’s mouth.
“ . . . a tumbling, liquid epic that flows across northern landscapes, through changing voices, epochs and landmarks, drenching the reader with a rich sense of place, stillness and movement. Come on in, the water’s lovely."
Jo Bell
“To read this evocative poem is to be energized by an encounter with a dynamic presence, expressed in phrasing that shimmers."
John McCullough
“A marvellous immersive tour de force that . . . often catches the reader by surprise. Fabulous vivid, contrasting and original imagery. A multi layered historical portrait of the area which I connected to on a very deep level.”
Bob Beagrie
76 pages, 12 b&w illustrations by Holly Magdalene Scott
Price £9.99
Advance copies can be ordered from the Book Mill for £9.00 plus £1.53 P&P. Please email [email protected]
Copies available on the 1st January.
by Judi Sutherland
Teisa is an ancient name for the River Tees – one of England’s great rivers. Judi Sutherland follows an unknown 18th century female poet, Anne Wilson, on a journey along its banks, from sheep grazed moors and lead mines, past spectacular water falls and industrial wastelands to the river’s mouth.
“ . . . a tumbling, liquid epic that flows across northern landscapes, through changing voices, epochs and landmarks, drenching the reader with a rich sense of place, stillness and movement. Come on in, the water’s lovely."
Jo Bell
“To read this evocative poem is to be energized by an encounter with a dynamic presence, expressed in phrasing that shimmers."
John McCullough
“A marvellous immersive tour de force that . . . often catches the reader by surprise. Fabulous vivid, contrasting and original imagery. A multi layered historical portrait of the area which I connected to on a very deep level.”
Bob Beagrie
76 pages, 12 b&w illustrations by Holly Magdalene Scott
Price £9.99
Advance copies can be ordered from the Book Mill for £9.00 plus £1.53 P&P. Please email [email protected]
Copies available on the 1st January.
Write to be Counted:-
An Anthology of Poetry to Uphold Human Rights
edited by Kathleen Jones, Nicola Jackson and Jacci Bulman
"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights".
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
"To be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others".
Nelson Mandela
Never, since World War II, have core values and human rights seemed more under threat. The future of the planet, and the people who live on it, in social, economic and environmental terms, seems genuinely at risk. Vulnerable people all over the world have seen their lives disrupted by war and extreme climate events. What can we do as writers? All the poets in this anthology, from Lebanon to Cambodia, North America, Australasia and across Europe, have put words on paper in order to be counted, to support human rights, including the right to live on a planet that is fit for habitation. All the profits will be donated to PEN, the international organisation which supports freedom of speech all over the world, to protect those who speak truth to power.
118 pages
£8.50 Plus £1.53 p&p
Order from [email protected]
An Anthology of Poems by the North Cumbria Stanza Group.
Alison Barr
Shelagh Brown
Jacci Bulman
Josephine Dickinson
Nicola Jackson
Kathleen Jones
Lelia Tanti
Kenneth Wilson
Venetia Young
Proceeds to the Great North Air Ambulance service.
£6.99 Plus £1.53 p&p
Order from [email protected]
Alison Barr
Shelagh Brown
Jacci Bulman
Josephine Dickinson
Nicola Jackson
Kathleen Jones
Lelia Tanti
Kenneth Wilson
Venetia Young
Proceeds to the Great North Air Ambulance service.
£6.99 Plus £1.53 p&p
Order from [email protected]
|
The Unpredicted Spring: An Anthology of Lockdown Poetry, 2020. In 1930, English poet Norman Nicholson was diagnosed with Tuberculosis at the age of sixteen and admitted to a sanatorium, where he was placed in isolation for almost two years. It was, he said, where he learned to be a poet. In 2020, in the middle of a pandemic, millions of people all over the world faced lockdown and months of social isolation. The Norman Nicholson Society organised a poetry competition, asking for experiences of the pandemic from adults and young people under eighteen. This anthology is the result. It contains poetry from all over the world, and the subject matter is equally varied; from goats in Llandudno, to woodland walks, the women of Chennai sewing masks through the night, northern birdsong, the bureaucracy of Coronavirus, and a family argument over a fur coat – it’s all here. 73 pages £10.99 Plus £1.53 p&p All Profits to the Norman Nicholson Society. Order from [email protected] |
