Landmarking, Only crow and Galactic wood

Three short poems, recently shared on twitter through @toptweettuesday – Black Bough Poetry’s imagist focused poetry platform. Two birds, two sky-holes and a tiny galaxy of flies and light.

Three invitations to the unexpected

I often find it’s the unexpected encounters, or ‘walk shocks’, that make a particular trip memorable.

That was certainly true of at least three I’ve been on this year – plodding along, looking out for particular views, famous sites, when, wham! something, usually from the more-than-human world, was suddenly present, changing the view, changing the day, changing everything.

Lost in the woods up the road

It is more than possible to lose yourself inside the wood. Not, of course, physically in a Hansel and Gretel way, more like released, albeit temporarily, from the cares of everyday life.

In a green place: Hebers Ghyll, Ilkley

It’s a strange thing to walk into someone else’s memories; especially those that have been woven and tangled about a place. A place that you’ve heard about, but never visited. Somewhere that means a great deal to the person who told you about it, but for you, who’s never been, it retains the status of a rumour.

At the tree border: Sydenham Hill Station

The large frames created between the support struts, beneath the corrugated iron roof, seem like glassless windows, with ash and oak, horse chestnut, hazel, sycamore and brambles pressing themselves right up to the edges. Sometimes it feels as though passengers are being protected from the looming sylvan creatures beyond.

A Place On The Shelf 1: Mythago Wood

A mysterious letter. A secret journal. An ancient wood, in borderland territory. Deceptive paths and strange, ghostlike figures, stirring at the edge of the trees. These were some of the elements that quickly took hold and drew me into Ryhope Wood, when I first read about it aged 15.

Recently I re-read it, rediscovered and found many new things to treasure.

Deep inside the forest round the corner.

Granville Road Spinney is a short walk from Finsbury Park tube. Just minutes from busy, grimy, North London is a place where bats, hedgehogs, frogs and foxes and more can be found.

Into the Narroways – a landscape of words

Landscapes, imagined and remembered, have always played a central role in literature.

The fascinating relationship between writers and the British landscape is currently explored in a new exhibition at The British Library: Writing Britain: Wastelands to Wonderlands. Here are some thoughts it inspired.