Beyond Scafell by Alan Robinson Find!
I think that many of us involved in this project have commented how, were it not for Reading Detectives, we wouldn't have chosen to read particular titles or we would simply have "missed" them altogether by not coming across them.
I think my latest find falls into the latter category - a title I would simply just have "missed" or not come across in my usual diet of fiction! It is a collection of poems called Beyond Scafell, by Alan Robinson, and what a lovely collection of poems it is.
The collection is arranged with the poems allocated into themes, but every single poem is associated with Cumbria and the Lake District - either the people or the landscape.
So we find themed sections such as "Roaming Free", where the poems are all about the high fells and peaks, or "Scratching a Living" which encompasses ancient and modern Cumbrian industries from Iron Ore to Nuclear.
Other sections look at Cumbrian Castles, farming, leisure activities such as hound trailing and Cumberland and Westmorland wrestling, historical and literary figures, or places of worship.
There is even a poem about building dry stone walls on the fells which fits in perfectly with Mary's find and a poem to the memory of John Wilkinson the Iron Master who has alreday cropped up in a couple of Cumbria's blogs.
This is a book which the reader can either read through systematically thus preserving the poet's thematic approach with a related series of poems, or, they can take a more serendipitous approach by dipping in and out of it.
As well as a variety of theme there is also a range of form and style, but all the poems are nicely written and there is a good use of imagery. A collection which truly captures the spirit of this project, in the way that it is inspired by and reflects the area and its people.
As for the poet, Alan Robinson, he has had numerous poems published in anthologies and has also published many collections of his own.
He was born in Cumbria and lived here for many years, but latterly he has been living in Derbyshire - which has inspired him to publish another collection called Poems of Peak and Dale. One for our friends in the Derbyshire group to track down I think!
29 September 2009 from Helen
Finds
- Grange-over-Sands: The Story of a Gentle Township
- The Silent Traveller: A Chinese Artist in Lakeland
- Red Ike
- Cumbrian Privies
- Ethel Fisher's West Cumbrian Dialect titles
- The Embalmer's Book of Recipes by Ann Lingard
- Nella Last's Peace
- Riding the Stang by Dawn Robertson
- Life on the Fell - a pictorial chronicle of a Lakeland community
- About Scout Scar
- William Wilberforce - A Summer Diary 1779
- Beatrix Potter - the unknown years
- Smoke over Shap by Margaret Potter
- Songs of a Cragsman by George Basterfield
- The Grasmere Dialect Plays
- The Grizedale Experience: Sculpture, Art & Theatre in a Lakeland Forest
- An Atlas of The English Lakes
- How Hall. Poetry and Memories. A Passion for Ennerdale by Tom Rawling
- Stumpy, Hero of the Lakes
- The High Places by A. Harry Griffin
- The Highest House in Wathendale
- Kendal by Roger Bingham
- Secrets and Legends of Old Westmorland
- Reminiscences of Wordsworth Among the Peasantry of Westmorland by Canon Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley
- Little Gods by Jacob Polley
- A Lakeland Summer
- Hunter of Harter Fell by Joseph E Chipperfield
- And Nobody Woke Up Dead
- An accessible paradise
- The Fleming Family novels and Graham Sutton
- Excursion to Loweswater. A Lakeland Visit 1865
- Writing on the Wall
- Beyond Scafell by Alan Robinson
- Rogue Herries by Hugh Walpole
- Kendal In The Nineteenth Century by A Wainwright
- In There Somewhere
- The Bondwomen by W G Collingwood
- "Ah'd Gaa Back Tomorra!"
- A Cumbrian Copper by Ray Huddart
- The Arsenic Labyrinth by Martin Edwards
- Old Will Stories by Dudley Hoys
- The Shield Ring by Rosemary Sutcliff
- T'Bacca Queen by Theodora Wilson Wilson
- Furness and the Industrial Revolution
- The Shadow of Black Combe
- The Painted Letters of Percy Kelly
- Ivver Sen
- Lakeland in the 1830s
- Wasdale Climbing Book By Michael Cocker
- Riding High by Barbara Sneyd
- Deborah in Langdale
- Early Recollections of Grange
- Hazard's Way by Roger Hubank
- Yan, Tan, Tethera
- Talk of the Town
- Capturing the Mountains
- Hope On, Hope Ever
- Mildred Edwards: Our City Our People 1889 - 1978 Memories
- Lakeland Limericks
- Surrounding loveliness
- Haweswater by Sarah Hall
- Coast to Coast by Jan Minshull
- Sunshine To The Sunless
- Geese, cattle wallopers and secret Irish paths
- Anarchists, Angels and wet Bank Holiday Mondays
- A more unconventional kind of find...?
- Skiddaw Summit by Kathleen Jones
- Thorstein of the Mere: A Saga of the Northmen in Lakeland
- Wednesday Early Closing
- Smoke Across The Fell
- The Sand Pilot of Morecambe Bay
- The Chronicles of Boggerthwaite
- Carrock Fell
- Feet in the Clouds
- Hercules and the Farmer's Wife
- Shepherd's Warning
- The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices
- I've been so busy reading I haven't had time to blog!
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