Made in Derbyshire - a launch and a farewell

An image from my recent exhibition with the wonderful
Peak Gallery in Bakewell.

After an incredibly varied two years as Derbyshire Poet Laureate, traversing our beautiful county from New Mills to Swadlincote, writing new poems and working with many groups along the way, I said goodbye to a wonderful role in September at the launch of 'Made in Derbyshire: Laureate Poems' in Chesterfield library.

It was a lovely evening, featuring readings from local writers and a taste of a poetry and flamenco performance I'm working on with guitarist Samuel Moore. I will miss being Derbyshire Laureate a great deal, but I'm delighted to have had the opportunity to capture some of my experiences in a collection of poems, featuring commissions, group poems and competition winning pieces by local authors.

Here's a sneak preview from the preface:

I was born in Sheffield and grew up in North East Derbyshire, close to Chesterfield. As a teenager, I used to hide in Chesterfield library on Saturday afternoons and devour the poetry section. I’d go back every week and find more new books to fire my growing passion for rhythm, metre and surprising images. And I’d try to scribble lines of my own. Thirteen years and a large helping of luck later, those scribblings became a first collection of published poems called ‘Division Street’. I moved back to Derbyshire and, from my small house in Hathersage, started to write about the landscape that inspired me and made me want to explore - I began to think about why places like Stanage Edge and Higgar Tor and Ladybower gave me the urge to put vague feelings into words.When I was given the opportunity to be Derbyshire Poet Laureate, I was honoured. I think I assumed I’d just carry on with the pieces I was trying to write about the moors and gritstone edges. I was wrong. I had underestimated the county I loved.

A day reading poems in every cafe the length of Chesterfield’s Chatsworth Road, ambushing the shoppers in Morrisons. A workshop with patients at Newholme Hospital, Bakewell, who taught me that Sheffield was ‘a dirty picture in a golden frame’. A visit to my old secondary school. A poem for Toyota, translated into Japanese. A poem for a football match. A week exploring the history of Eckington. A reading in a beautiful garden in Ashbourne, surrounded by rare flowers. A poem for a film about Shirebrook. A poem for a tea towel. These are some of the things I’ve done, but they aren’t the whole story either.

If you'd like to find out more about any of those strange and brilliant Laureate experiences, you'll have to buy the book! Please contact Ali Betteridge for more information about 'Made in Derbyshire'.

The last two years have been an honour and I've had the pleasure of working with so many great people. I hope I'll still get the chance to do so in the future, celebrating all things 'Made in Derbyshire' through creative writing.

The world's fastest tortoise (and other records)

On Friday 7th August, I worked with young writers at Ashbourne and Matlock libraries, encouraging them to invent some new world records all of their own. The workshops were held to celebrate 60 years of the Guinness Book of World Records, and everyone who attended got into the spirit of the challenge, suggesting weird and wonderful achievements they'd like to see, from the world's largest pizza to the world's smallest giraffe. We had a brilliant day, and wrote two group poems based on the record suggestions. Hope you like them!


Record Breakers

Today, we broke the record for the longest chain of party rings,
the most puppets in a puppet show,
the most wigs worn on one small head.
We did the most flips on a trampoline
until we felt sick. We raced the fastest tortoise
in the world. We froze our fingertips, rolling
the world’s biggest snowball, then we stuffed our faces
with Victoria sponge, the most ever eaten in a minute.

When we blinked, it was the world’s biggest blink.
We balanced towers of tottering penguins on our heads,
made food with our feet. We found the quickest cow
to leap over the moon and we held onto it
and zipped over the clouds, the stars
like freckles as we rose. And best of all,
we did it all without leaving the library.
We let our pens give lift off to the world.

Ashbourne Library, August 7th 2015



Record Riddle

What am I?
Lift off my roof and find
the biggest window in the world,
the longest car drive
and the fluffiest cloud.
What am I?
I hold the smallest giraffe neck,
sand-coloured and bright,
the world’s smelliest cheese,
the longest rhyming rap.
What am I?
I’ve got the speediest snail,
the most yoghurt eaten
with a fork. I’ve got
so many manies
you can’t count them all!
I’m a library,
crammed with poets.
I’m every word
in the universe,
I’m everything
you thought
and didn’t say.

Matlock Library, August 7th, 2015

Time-stopping poems at Buxton

L-R: Helen Mort (judge); Joe Caldwell (3rd); David Wilson (2nd)
and Aly Stoneman (1st). Photo by Aly Stoneman.

It was a real treat for me to judge the open category of the Buxton Poetry Competition again this year and even better seeing the winners receive their prizes at Derby University last night.

The 2015 competition had 'time' as its theme and as I read the entries I was reminded of Ezra Pound's remark that "an 'image' is that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time." In and out of time - great poems can change our perception of the present, make time speed up or slow down.

The winning pieces moved me and surprised me with their range, concision and memorability. Immersing myself in so many subtle reflections on time made me wish I could wear a poem on my wrist instead of a watch.

The competition was won by Aly Stoneman with her poem 'Windfalls'. Congratulations to Aly and to all the other winners: results will be available on the Buxton Poetry Competition website soon. Congratulations to the winners of the youth and intermediate categories too - the young writers who came to the ceremony read very impressively. I hope the competition continues to flourish every year.

Aly's poem in the competition anthology.

Record breaking workshops

This summer, I'm very excited to be running two creative writing workshops on August 7th to celebrate the Guinness Book of World Records - one in Ashbourne and one in Matlock.

The world’s longest tongue, the largest yo-yo, the man with a weight-lifting beard, which records fire YOUR imagination?

Explore the Guinness Book of World Records with Helen Mort, our very own Derbyshire Poet Laureate, and you might even create the world’s best poem!

Ashbourne Library

Friday 7^th August

10.30am – 12pm

To book your FREE place please call 01629 533950 or ask library staff for further details

Suitable for children aged 5 and over

 All under 8s must be accompanied by an adult/carer

Matlock Library

Friday 7^th August

2pm – 3.30pm

To book your FREE place please call 01629 533950 or ask library staff for further details

Poetry Set in Stone

I'm very excited to have had a sneak preview of a brilliant stone sculpture and mosaic made by the artist Andrew Tebbs for a new installation at Newton, near Tibshelf. This public artwork was made by Andrew after consultation with local residents and he passed some of their thoughts and memories about the Newton area on to me so that I could turn them into a short poem.

The finished poem, 'Who Goes There?' has now been carved into the sculpture - the first time I've had any of my writing set in stone!

Andrew mentioned to me that many people had spoken to him about nearby Tibshelf services and the fact that so many famous people have stopped there over the years. I wondered what would happen if a local lad from the distant past - the cotton spinner Jedediah Strutt - decided to pop by for a visit. My short poem was inspired by a strange convergence of cotton mills and service stations, Derbyshire past meeting Derbyshire present.


Who goes there?

Who goes there, who goes there?

Jedediah Strutt with loom-spun hair,
stepping clean out of the air,
cotton-spinning, slow with care.

Who goes there, who goes there?

Fix the present in your stare.
we’re all Jedediah’s heirs,
weaving stories: homemade, rare.

Wordsworth's Landscapes

As a writer who responds to Derbyshire landscapes so often in my work, I was thrilled to be invited to make a film discussing Wordsworth's poem The Prelude. The short documentary looks at the 'stealing a boat' section of Wordsworth's poem and we filmed it on location in Ullswater in December. As you'll probably be able to tell, it was a little bit chilly.

You can watch the footage here, hope you enjoy it.

Travels down the Staveley Corridor

As someone who grew up in Calow, North East Derbyshire and lived there until relatively recently, I've always had reasons to go to Staveley - to visit the gym, visit the inn (!) or walk my dogs down the canal path. And on my journeys, I've often passed the beautiful brick of Staveley Library and thought it looked like an inviting place to stop for a while. Yesterday, I finally got chance to take it in as part of Staveley Wellbeing Day.

It was a real treat working with people from Staveley, Mastin Moor and beyond who use the Home Libraries Service. Inspired by the bookcases around us, we talked about the different 'chapters' of Staveley history, from pit ponies to hardware shops and turned these memories into a group poem.

Afterwards, everyone got chance to talk to playwright Kevin Fagan about a new community play he is writing for performance at Barrow Hill Roundhouse. Kevin has called the area he's writing about the 'Staveley Corridor' and I thought that was a really neat phrase. If you're from that area and would be interested in being interviewed by Kevin, do get in touch. 

Thanks to all at Staveley for a great day.


The Book of Memories
A poem for Staveley Wellbeing Day

The first page is steel works, noise and smoke,
the sheds at Barrow Hill, solid as oak.
There’s a chapter of families, moving for jobs,
feeding the pit ponies, keeping them shod.
Shire horses paraded proud at the shows –
one met the Queen! – they stood tall in rows.

The story moves on, fast as open top cars,
the first on the road, fast-forwarding hours.
(Here’s a footnote for the Regal, the Staveley Pictures,
the dance hall in Chesterfield – twirling at Jimmy’s,
the stationers and Sonky Sales
where they traded in hardware, hammers and nails
and anything they didn’t have they’d find.
There were shoe shops and milliners, neat in line.)

There’s a new chapter now, the streets are fresher
and we chatter round books in the library at leisure.
There are more names to learn and we lock our doors
but we’ve shared the same story, through labour and wars.
We’ve written a book you can’t judge by its cover
and when this chapter finishes, we’ll start another.


By Mary Davison, Jean Hamson, Mary White, Dave Walker, Beryl Liavsley, Margaret Pattison, David Wheatley, Jean Pendleton, Margaret Webster, Beryl Adams, Olive Owen, with a bit of help from Derbyshire Poet Laureate Helen Mort.

Sandiacre Now & Then

I'm just back from Sandiacre Library and another wonderful Wellbeing Day organised by Priscilla Baily and the Derbyshire team. I was late and in a flap after a lorry fire on the M1, but by the time I arrived, the library users were already sitting round a table with tea and biscuits, trading stories about Sandiacre industry and manufacturing - some people had even worked in the same places when they were younger.

I recently wrote a poem about things that are 'Made in Derbyshire' for a county-wide festival, so after sharing my short verses with the group, our conversation turned to products that used to be made in Sandiacre. From lace to furniture, everyone was proud of Sandiacre's industrial past and sad that so much manufacturing and craftsmanship has disappeared from this corner of Derbyshire. The conversation was a chance to celebrate that legacy but also to talk about the things that make Sandiacre a great place to be today: two members of the group had moved to the area from Kent and were quick to remark that 'everyone says hello to you and smiles at you up here.'

Here's the poem we wrote together, based on Margaret's memories of Lace Webb, Melvyn's countless jokes, Glen's time as a crane driver and much more besides:


Sandiacre Now and Then
a poem for Sandiacre Wellbeing Day

It’s a place where everyone talks to you,
where faces smile in the checkout queue.
I knew Sandiacre before the motorway,
though Lace Webb made seats for Ford in my day.
There used to be holes in the lace we made,
now there’s a hole where we lost the trade.
At Stanton they made “old men and pipes”
but we made everything: we were a hive.
I drove cranes at Taylor Brothers, cold as Siberia
but the things we crafted were all superior.
When I grew up, I knew everyone’s name
from Margaret Avenue down to Lock Lane.
Our roots are deep and intertwined.
This place has changed, but it’s yours and mine.

Poem by Margaret Gill, Julianne Gascoyne, Melvyn Kelly, Ken Roycroft, Pam Roycroft, Glen Hayes and Valerie Eyre, with a bit of help from Derbyshire Poet Laureate Helen Mort.

Make a Poetry Promise for 2015

Happy new year! After two blissful weeks of running over the Kinder plateau in snow, seeing friends and reading books, I'm dreading January with its flinty stare and diet of lettuce leaves. We all know it's the worst possible time of year to give up anything, but we feel like we should make some resolutions anyway. But help is at hand....this year, instead of quitting something for 2015, Poetry by Heart is encouraging us to take on a new challenge and learn a poem by heart or read a new poem every month throughout the year. I'm taking the challenge. Will you join me?

Poetry by Heart is an organisation that encourages students aged 14-18 to memorise poems and make them their own. They run a national competition every year (and I'm happy to be part of the judging panel for the Derbyshire & Notts round later this month). But learning poems by heart isn't just for school pupils - anyone can join in and make a 'poetry promise' for 2015.

The phrase 'learn by heart' comes from the ancient Greeks. They placed the seat of thought in the heart rather than the head. I think that's a rather beautiful mistake: after all, when you memorise words you love, you take them into your heart.

Throughout this year, I'll be attempting to memorise a poem every month and I'll share some videos of the poems on twitter (@HelenMort) and here on the blog. Why not join me in the poetry promise? If learning a new poem every month sounds like too much, you could promise to just read a poem a month instead or perhaps even write one. You can find out more about the poetry promise by contacting Poetry by Heart on twitter (@PoetryByHeart) or visiting their website here.

Now, where did I put my memory?

Brookfield students shine at the Poetry Promenade

I'm very pleased to be able to publish two new poems by Brookfield Community School students Madeline Wort and Emily Wagstaffe here on the blog. Madeline and Emily (pictured with me on the left) took part in some workshops I ran for Cape Farewell at Brookfield earlier this year, thinking about climate change issues and the natural world. Last Friday, they joined me in St Thomas' Cafe for the start of the Chatsworth Road Poetry Promenade and read their poems out. I hope you enjoy them as much as everyone in the cafe did!

Untitled

by Emily Wagstaffe:

Listen to the tree’s story

As the wind whispers to the leaves

And the bark taps back to the woodpecker.

The branches criss cross and argue

About who goes where

As the leaves express themselves

In their colours

The roots search under the soil

For their voices

Then it falls silent

When it blends in to the

Black night

Twit two

by Madeline Wort:

You’re happy

I’m sad

You make me frown

All you ever do

Is put me down

You’re nasty

You’re cruel

You make me look like a fool

You think it makes you look cool

So why is your final aim

To make me cry

At night I stare at the sky

Wondering why.

The Chatsworth Challenge: 10 cafes, 1 road, countless poems

Reading at Blu. Photo by John Pratt

Last weekend saw the end of Chesterfield's vibrant Chatsworth Road Festival and on Friday I took part in a one-off challenge: could I read poems in every café down Chatsworth Road from town to Brampton Manor? It was a bit like doing the Brampton Mile without beer.

We started early in the morning at St Thomas' Church café and ended up back there at 3pm, high on caffeine and short on voice. The journey in between included readings at Café Aroma, Blu, Maison Mes Amis, Meringue, Koo, Nonnas, Brampton Manor and, most dauntingly, Morrisons supermarket café. I admired the food Chesterfield's cafés have on offer (from authentic Italian dishes at Café Aroma to skyscraper cakes at Meringue), drank too many coffees and met some lovely people, many of whom weren't expecting a sonnet to go with their morning cuppa. Everyone stopped what they were doing and had the courtesy and patience to listen.

Special mention is reserved for Northern Tea Merchants, our second calling point on the journey. I've been visiting the place since I was a teenager and used to go in there with my dad, breathing in the rich scent of the ground beans, wondering about the journey the coffee had been on. We were made incredibly welcome there and I had a small surprise for them too - a short poem written specially for Northern Tea Merchants. This is about visiting the shop with my good friend Richard when we were younger and being surprised by something he bought.


Northern Tea Merchants

Me and Rich, hunting
the perfumed shelves
for things to fix the day.

He chose a tea flower -
jasmine, unremarkable,
a sphere bunched in his hand

but back at the flat
with our warm talk
and warm water

it softened, became
an open palm.
Even when the cups

were drained
we knew we wouldn’t
throw the dregs away.


Thank you to Shirley Niblock, Howard Borrell, Ali Betteridge and all the staff and customers in the cafes we visited - it was a great day out.

National Poetry Day and beyond

National Poetry Day is always a special opportunity for everyone with an interest in the spoken and written word to join forces and celebrate what poems can do. This year it fell on October 2nd and I was lucky enough to be part of not just a day but a whole week of festivities. On Tuesday September 30th, I was in London, judging the Forward Prize for Poetry and it was a wonderful moment seeing winners Kei Miller and Liz Berry collect their prizes on stage at The South Bank. You can find out more about some of these events on this Guardian Books podcast. For National Poetry Day, Forward Arts were encouraging people to 'think of a poem', so myself and fellow judges Vahni Capildeo and Cerys Matthews joined the cause as you can see in this picture....

Back in Derbyshire on Thursday, participants at two library events (in Swadlincote and Shirebrook) were keen to remember poems they'd learned by heart and one woman at Swadlincote had even brought a supply of her own verses. I had an interesting morning and afternoon reading my own poems and talking about how I became a writer.And there was cake! The morning trip to Swadlincote library was my first ever trip to that corner of the county, but everyone made me feel so welcome I'm sure I'll be back.

This week, I was in Chesterfield signing books at Waterstones: when I was a teenager writing poems, I could never have dreamed I'd even have a book on the shelves at Waterstones, let alone be signing copies of it one day. Thanks to all the staff there for making me feel so welcome. In the afternoon, I worked with Moorside Writers and others in Chesterfield library in a creative writing workshop based around objects people had brought with them - every one had an interesting story behind it.

The celebrations aren't quite over yet - this Friday (10th October) I'll be reading poems at different cafes along Chatsworth Road in Chesterfield, part of the Chatsworth Road Festival. I'll be taking my verses for a walk round Brampton between 9.30 am and 3pm, so if you're at a cafe en route you'll have a chance to hear some live literature while you enjoy your tea. Please come and say hello!

Celebrating Shirebrook

The former Shirebrook Colliery,
a focus of the new film.

Yesterday saw a very special event at Shirebrook Academy as the sports hall played host to the Hallé Orchestra who raised the roof with a concert of classical pieces and music from films. They were joined by students from the Academy and the Miner's Welfare Brass Band to launch a new documentary, 'Shirebrook: A Living Heritage', made by Martyn Harris with an original score by Beatrice Schirmer. I've been working with students at Shirebrook Academy over the past couple of months, encouraging them to write poems about Shirebrook's past and future. The film featured a piece of my own, written specially for it, which you can read below. Congratulations to everyone who made yesterday such a wonderful event!

Shining Stream

At Shirebrook, dig
until your spade hits
long forgotten seams of coal,
all Lipton’s vanished architecture,
places where the headstocks used to stand.

Then deeper,
til you touch down
on the slats of a ghost loom,
or strike against the railway tracks
of 1895, worn smooth by back-and-forth.

And deeper,
down to clay tiles
left from Roman settlements,
the gaps where footprints first
learned how to shape themselves.

Keep on
until you’re stopped
by water, meet a Shining Stream:
the future passing underneath us,
running clear and quiet and bright.

A Derbyshire Cyclist's Song

We've all gone cycling crazy this weekend, and in honour of the Grand Depart passing very briefly through Derbyshire, here's a commissioned poem I wrote in the voice of a slightly worn-out Derbyshire cyclist. Happy biking, everyone!

A Derbyshire Cyclist’s Song

Cycling up our county’s tilted hills,

I slow the pedals, hover bird-like

until the forge of my own heartbeat stills.

I think of Tebbit’s famous “on yer bike”.

Did he mean movement equals fight?

I don’t know how to name this work,

these moments of uncomplicated flight:

pitted against limestone, the path going beserk,

running away from gravity.

Perhaps he meant keep on and lose yourself.

If you find meaning in activity

you’ve found the spoke of life itself…

Who cares. This is my slow labour of like.

I can’t stop now. I get back on my bike.

Someone who stops and says hello

On Friday, Alfreton Library hosted a fantastic Wellbeing day which was open to all but was attended by a lot of people who use the Home Library service and struggle to leave their houses much of the time. At Alfreton, they could try free aromatherapy hand massage, take part in a craft workshop and get information and support about everything from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder to Books on Prescription. As the latter implies, the focus of the day was on how reading and writing can improve mental and physical health, so I went along to run a poetry workshop and book cafe in the library too.

A Brocken Spectre at Litton, Christmas 2013

The theme of my workshop was things that make you happy, so I shared some objects and memories that always make me smile (from a wooden carving of a sailor that belonged to my granddad to a pebble from the beach in Suffolk) and read out a poem of mine called 'Brocken Spectre' which describes some features of Derbyshire landscape that always lift my spirits. That led to a discussion of the time I saw a Brocken Spectre with my dad on Boxing Day this year, and prompted one woman to remember a day many years ago when she walked the edge of a rainbow in Scotland, above Pitlochry.

Memories bubbled to the surface fast, with people talking about holidays they'd been on, food they'd eaten and walks they'd take with their dogs. But I was overwhelmed by how many times everyone mentioned the Home Library service as something that made them happy, giving them contact with the outside world when they otherwise might feel quite isolated and cut off. "A book can take you out of yourself," said one member of the group, "even if it isn't a happy story, it makes you think differently about things." Soon, we were busy celebrating the small, everyday things that make life better. Someone who stops and says hello to you in the park. Someone who asks you how you are and listens while you answer, whether you're being honest or just putting on a brave face and saying "I'm fine".

We wrote a group poem (with different people coming up with different lines) but I hope it reflects some of the many things - large and small - that make these particular readers happy. We called it 'in and out' because everyone was particularly happy that they'd been able to get out for the day, so they wanted to mention that.

In and Out
a group poem written at Alfreton Library on June 13^th, 2014

The memory of holding my first grandchild
with the chubby thighs and endless smile.
The time I walked the edge of a rainbow
with the Scottish hills spread out below.
A salad I ate on honeymoon in France,
or going up north for a Motown dance.

The birds outside and what they tell…

But it’s the little things I love as well –

breathing, the fact that you’re taking in life,

how pets take away your troubles and strife,

how a book can take you somewhere else,

the whole world held in a single shelf.
Or just someone who stops and says hello,

the way Spring makes the landscape glow.

The colours of Spring are loud and proud
and today we can all get in and out!

A dirty picture in a golden frame

You think you know a place until you talk to people who know it better. Last Tuesday, I was lucky enough to work with Anne Grange and patients at Newholme Hospital in Bakewell, gathering some of their reminiscences about favourite places. I started the sessions by reading some of my own poems about Derbyshire landscapes and then everyone shared memories of their own favourite spots around the county - I found out about Cromford bear pit, dancing bears at Belper, the curious shop at Castleton and heard more ghost stories than I could shiver at. It might only have been 2 o'clock in the afternoon, but it was still

Cromford bear pit

chilling to listen to people recounting tales of the Grey Lady at the old hospital.

The session also introduced me to a saying about Sheffield that I'd never heard before - apparently the industrial city used to be known as 'a dirty picture in a golden frame', steelworks and factories held in the palm of the Peak District. That saying formed the basis of a group poem which I'm sharing with you here with kind permission from Anne.

Anne will be working with everyone at Newholme Hospital to produce an anthology of poems later this year. It was a real privilege to share an afternoon with them.

A Dirty Picture in a Golden Frame

Summer holidays spent in Hathersage

Our milkman uncle used to take us around the village

Clopping in his cart – it was busy, even then,

With day-trippers from Sheffield – lots of cyclists.

Sheffield was a “dirty picture in a golden frame”

Now the forges and drop hammers are still

There are fish in the Don again at Attercliffe

And the “Dee Dars” have clean air to breathe

Now cyclists and walkers travel the old railways

Cinder paths from Monsal Head to Cromford

HS2 will speed through Belper; the greenery a blur

No time for Awkwright’s Mills; the Derwent’s flow

Lumsdale’s waterfall, tranquil ponds and woodlands

A space to stop and think: that it all started here

Spinning cotton, grinding corn, the wheels kept turning

Back-breaking work in the mills, now ivy-covered ruins.

“Yorkshire Born, Derbyshire Bred

Strong int’ arm, Wick in head”

It didn’t mean weak – but quick and strong

We needed to keep those mills and grindstones turning.

But now they’ve stopped and nature’s returned

And trees grow where the factories once stood.

Poetry inspired by Helen Mort’s visit to Newholme Hospital on 29/04/14

Stanton Day hospital

Theme:  “My favourite places”

I Am Clay Cross

Over the last few weeks, Derbyshire has been keeping me as busy as Derbyshire should: a series of schools workshops, a cycling poem (watch this space!), two trips to Wirksworth to work with the wonderful Word Miners group and a session for young writers at Clay Cross library. Phew! One of my favourite things about writing poems with teenagers and children is that they always have as much to teach me about language as I do them. In Clay Cross, we wrote a group poem (passing folded papers round like a game of consequences) and I learned a lot about the town and what makes it special to everyone who lives there. With kind permission from the Super Scribers writers, I'm including a bit of the poem here. Many thanks to fantastic author Emma Pass for facilitating the workshop.

I am Clay Cross.
I see the spring creeping up on me.
I hear cheery greetings and traffic.
I smell the flowers opening up for spring.
I touch the edges of forgotten secret paths.
I wish we had a slower pace of life.
I will always be Clay Cross.

I am Clay Cross.
I see the houses in the distance.
I hear the birds sing. Blackbirds, robins, bluetits.
I smell steam and coal dust all around.
I touch street lamps blazing.
I wish I could see myself the way the birds see me.
I will always be Clay Cross.

I am Clay Cross.
I see the bustling people running into the shops.
I hear the clash clashing of Stephenson’s rocket.
I smell car fumes.
I touch the tops of houses, rough roof slates.
I wish I could tell people what this place means to me.
I will always be Clay Cross.

I am Clay Cross.
I see coal bins filled with flowers.
I hear trees whistling.
I smell the strange perfume of diesel.
I touch stone and brick and brass shop door handles.
I wish for woods full of bluebells.
I will always be Clay Cross.

Poem by Super Scribers writers, Clay Cross, March 2014.

'We're passing to you': poetry, young writers and football

Radio 3 recently ran a series in which 5 contemporary poets were invited to write personal letters to a young poet, inspired by Rilke's classic correspondence. Over the past two weeks, my laureate role has given me the opportunity to work with young writers all across Derbyshire, from Eckington to Glossop, and it's been an inspiring process: I'd be more interested to read their letters of advice to me than vice versa!

Last week I went to Chesterfield's mighty Proact stadium to run a workshop for Year 6 students from New Whittington Primary. I was encouraging them to write about their favourite things and their favourite places in Chesterfield and was humbled by their enthusiastic response. Instead of listing possessions as their favourite things, most of the pupils chose to write about friends, family, pets or treasured photographs. When they were asked to describe parts of Chesterfield that mean something to them, the poems ranged from an ode to the Crooked Spire to a homage to KFC, with everything else in between. You can read the Chesterfield Post's write up of the day here and see a video of me reading my poem 'Talk of the Town' at the Proact. Lots of the Year 6s were Spireites fans and were excited about the possibility of Chesterfield going to Wembley...

Working with students from New Whittington Primary

Then this weekend I took a drive over Winnats Pass in dazzling sunshine to run some workshops for families at New Mills and Glossop libraries, in honour of National Libraries Day. The workshops were particularly well attended by children and we spent the day writing letters (some in the form of poems) to our favourite characters from books. I learned a lot from the budding young writers at Glossop, who told me about David Walliams' brilliant books for children, including 'Gangsta Granny', which had me in stitches after only a few pages.

Later this month I'll be working in Eckington, encouraging Year 6 students to respond to local history through poetry and to enter their work for the 'Eckington Echoes' poetry competition, open to anyone who lives in Eckington. If you'd like more information about the competition, please contact Alison Betteridge.

An Open Book

This Saturday it's National Libraries Day, giving us a welcome excuse to celebrate our favourite books and mark the importance of having public spaces where we can access those books. With libraries across the country under threat, Derbyshire library users might be particularly aware of the nearby campaign to save Sheffield libraries, after it was revealed that 16 facilities may be shut across the city. A petition about the proposed cuts can be accessed here.

I have Chesterfield Library in my hometown to thank for my love of poetry - when I first got interested in creative writing as a teenager, I used to spend Saturday afternoons in there scanning the poetry shelves, looking for new things to read. Chesterfield library was the first place I really had access to contemporary poetry collections, work by people I'd not heard of before but instantly engaged with. I can vividly remember reading 'Roddy Lumsden is Dead' in there one rainy weekend and feeling like a new world of books had opened up to me. The idea that other young writers might not get the same opportunities one day is unthinkable.

Fortunately for Derbyshire folk, the future for libraries looks less bleak here than it does in Sheffield and this Saturday the county will be hosting events for National Libraries Day, including two workshops with your local laureate at Glossop and New Mills libraries. I'll be encouraging workshop participants to tell me about their favourite books and to use those books as a starting point for a new piece of writing (a letter to one of the book characters, perhaps, or a poem about the first time they read that book).

I have too many favourite books to mention. As you'd expect, many of those are poetry titles. But I've always loved novels too and one of the books I seem to get drawn back to time and again is Graham Swift's 'Waterland', a haunting portrait of the fens. I like it because, as well as telling a compelling story, it seems to capture the mood of fenland places in a way that nothing else does, a way I can't quite put my finger on. It reminds me of the impulse that makes me want to write poetry.

One of the pleasures of reading novels, of course, is finding out what's new. Last Tuesday I was in London for the announcement of the Costa Prize. It was won by a first book, 'The Shock of the Fall' by Nathan Filer, a debut about schizophrenia and grief. It follows the narrator Matthew's descent into schizophrenic illness following the death of his younger brother. Nathan Filer is only the fifth novelist to win the prestigious Costa Prize with a first book. If you want to read Nathan's award winning novel, I hope you can find it in your local library this Saturday....

New year, new poem for Chesterfield

At the T.S. Eliot prize with my editor and former editor.
Photo © Adrian Pope

Happy new year to everyone in Derbyshire!

It's been an eventful and uncharacteristically glamorous start to 2014 for your local laureate. In early January, I travelled down to London to attend the T.S. Eliot awards after my first collection 'Division Street' was shortlisted for the prize. Reading at the Royal Festival Hall to a packed house was an honour and privilege, especially sharing the stage with poets I've admired for years, including Dannie Abse and Sinead Morrissey, whose collection 'Parallax' went on to win the main prize. You can hear me reading one of my own poems 'Scab' here. Above all, I was touched by how much support and encouragement I got from everyone back home throughout the shortlisting process and the ceremony. Standing behind the mic in London, I felt proud to be representing a small corner of the world in a very small way. Thank you for helping me up to the stage.

It's always exciting to go to the capital, but, quite honestly, it's even more exciting when the train sighs back into Sheffield station. And it's better yet when the drive home twists past Fox House, then Surprise View (still surprising after all these years), then the slow drop past Lawrencefield and Millstone and all the other places I climb and, last of all, the houses at Hathersage, huddling for warmth under another morning cloud inversion. I know I'm properly home when I see the chalk board outside the Little John pub, the cottages with old Christmas trees still left out back, savouring the January rain after weeks kept inside houses they never asked to be in. But when I stumble through the door of mine, I'm always disappointed to find that Charlie Whippet still hasn't learned to put the kettle on...

The coming months will be packed with schools visits (including working with local historians in Eckington) and readings, and I also hope to be back at more Chesterfield FC matches soon too, after penning my first poem for them at the end of 2013, with help from Ben Wilkinson, who knows far more about football than I can ever hope to. The poem is called 'Talk of the Town' and was published in the Boxing Day match programme, so I can now share it with you here on the blog too.

Talk of the Town

We’re in possession, we’ve got the ball,
Spireites passing back and forth.
This is our chance, or we could let it go:
we run with all that we don’t know,
the front row rising from their seats
and more than ground beneath our feet –

we’re in possession, we’ve got the ball,
we’ve got Queen’s Park and the wide town hall.
Black and white shop fronts, brickwork like fire,
we’ve got The Shambles, we’ve got the Spire.
Tudor-faced pubs where the night unreels,
we’ve got the stage at the Winding Wheel,

the market’s blue and white-striped lots.
No list can keep the things we’ve got:
town’s held here, proud on the terraces,
this cheering crowd of Spireite faces.
We’re in possession, we’re coming through.
Look out. Look back. We’re passing to you.
* * *

Happy new year and happy writing!