Kidland, and other poems

Our age has grown unaccustomed to poetry inhabiting anything but past or present.  Exiled largely to the now, the visionary poet must watch on as novelist and film-maker stride confidently, if not authoritatively, into our possible futures. This poetic wariness serves us ill, especially when someone like Kingsnorth arrives with snow on his shoulders and embers in his gut. There’s a plainness of speech here, a seriousness, a raw first-handedness in intent, that insists on the conclusion that this particular gazer had to grind his crystal ball himself.
Mario Petrucci

There are shades of Ted Hughes in some of these poems.
Eyewear

I am blown away by Kidland. It is extraordinary.
Jay Griffiths

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From the moors of northern England to the cities of Western Europe, the poplars of the Thames to the sands of the Nevada desert, the poems in my debut collection rise from ancient landscapes to confront a society in denial about its relationship with nature, memory and destiny.

Structurally, the book is built around a long narrative poem set in the Kidland forest of Northumberland, which is bound about by two clutches of shorter poems. I won’t say much more about it here; poetry ought to speak for itself.

Salmon Poetry, 2011

Sample some of the poems from the book here.

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