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Will Newman
Angela Wilkinson
Catherine Mills
Charlotte Hodgson- Frances Hall
Ruth Gordon
Stephen Booth
Blythe Aimson
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Poole's Cavern, Buxton Find!
Poole's Cavern in Buxton is a 2 million year old natural cavern that has been designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest. The name derives from an outlaw, Poole, who reputedly used the cave as a lair and a base to rob travellers in the fifteenth century. So it's got spooky and criminal connections and has been used as a source for creative writing. Derbyshire's former Poet Laureate was inspired to write the following poem that can be found in her "Laureate Lines" collection published by Derbyshire County Council. It really conjurs up the feeling of the place.
Here food is granted its important place -
limestone bacon, poached iron oxide eggs,
shrugged quivering from cool calcite pots.
Cauliflower rears albino, monstrous;
wedding cake brims bright with mica bits.
We place our shy hands on a phallic stump
of rock, start a raucous giggling fit
which spasms on, swelling to a peak
at this, the smirking horror of a hard
cold breast, its single leaking eye.
Halfway through, we crowd around our guide
to hear the tale of who dared break the flitch -
knowing as we do the unfair truth
that touching things we shouldn't touch will always
be the act remembered longest, best;
looking back on dreamlike, half-lit worlds,
where Hobbits roam and angry Pixies lurk,
Dame Washpot pours down her endless whirlpool,
flicks us with her chilling drips; until
at last, the thing we dreaded most thrills through us
as the lights go out. Plunged in deepest
black we laugh at fear, reach out for hands,
recover. It's then we start to feel the cold,
understand how long this journey's been,
all the time emerging into the light,
footsteps quietening, already vanishing.
17 September 2009 from Will Newman
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- Poole's Cavern, Buxton
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- Scared to live
- The Jane Eyre Connection
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- The poet and the pool.....
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- Inspired by the Peak
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Help the team
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Hello Will
Thought I'd drop you a line to let you know about a title you might possibly want to follow up?
I've just posted a find for the Cumbria Reading Detectives team about a collection of poetry called Beyond Scafell by Alan Robinson.
I was interested to read on the back of the book that the poet used to live in Cumbria but now lives in Derbyshire, and he has published another collections of poems called Poems of Peak and Dale.
Happy Reading!
Helen