Poetry Book
Hallowed Hills: Poems
of Northern Britain
John Light
(33 pages, stapled, card cover)
ISBN 978 1 897968 43 7
£5 (or £3 direct from Photon Press) US$10;
US$11 air
In his introduction the author wrote:
Even in my London childhood I felt drawn towards the north by the brief
glimpses my grandmother vouchsafed, mentions of castles, blacksmiths,
the old miser uncles in Northumberland, her journey as a child to visit
them by steamer up the east coast and then overland by dogcart. Then
when I was a student at the University of Durham I made an effort to
find the reality - and there it was! A maternal line from northern
ancestry seemed to make understandable my sense of identity with the
wide and empty landscapes of Northumbria.
Although I returned to live in the south, it was with a wife born in
Leeds who herself had ancestors from Lancashire and Cumbria. It seemed
inevitable that we should usually take our children north for
inexpensive holidays, to one side of the Pennines or the other, and
over the border to Scotland. Many of the poems in this collection
resulted from those holidays, more recent ones from our life since we
retired to Berwick-upon-Tweed. So like my other collections of place,
this one is made up of poems covering a wide span of years but it is
perhaps a sunnier compilation than those.
Some poems from the book
Battle
Stone
Cheviot broods,
wrapt in teasing mists,
watching over
summer-lazy fields
below heavy
dark hammer-headed
afternoon clouds
threatening thunder.
All these still fields
drenched in history
whisper stories
of dread men marching
through afternoons
of darkening cloud
beneath those skies
long centuries gone.
The battle stone
in sullen silence
marks the meadow
where fearful men strove
for possession
of these fertile lands,
a bloody day
long centuries gone.
King and Queen
Rulers of a distorted commonwealth
enthroned
on Glenkiln Moor;
their court
was caught
by Henry Moore
who cloned
uncanny visions of uncommon wealth.
Night
Beat
It had a
chugging
steam-driven
rhythym
that set
the body
joyfully
dancing
into the
night time
enjoying
summer
with
swinging lanterns
pin-pricking
darkness.
The
life-beat woke me
from my
grey tiredness,
a fleeting
vision
of pagan
lifeforce
recalling
young times
when blood
pumped harder
by senses
driven
towards
the future.
(Page amended 05 September 2017)
The
contents of this site are copyright © John Light.
