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THE HORWICH HENNETS
Poems by Edmond Leo Wright
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In an intriguing new verse from the Hennet, here are facets of a Lancashire boyhood in the Thirties, reflecting obliquely light from the Seventies. This selection is made from a total of over 500.
Edmond Leo Wright was born in Horwich, Lancashire, in 1927. His father was a cinema-operator at the local Picture House. He has been the wearer of a sailor-suit, an elementary-school boy, a Young Co-operator, a page to the May Queen, a grammar-school boy, a Squire of St. Columba, an ATC sergeant, a Little Theatre actor, a youth-hosteller, a Royal Navy Instructor in Radio, an undergraduate reading English Language and Literature, a grammar-school master, and the Head of the English Department of a comprehensive school. He has also studied philosophy, obtaining a doctorate at Oxford in 1975; articles of his have appeared in various journals. He started writing poems in 1971, and they have appeared in Encounter, Phoenix, Samphire, Stand and other magazines. A longer poem of his, ‘What Mattered’, formed the basis of a BBC 2 TV ‘Closedown’ programme. The Horwich Hennets is his first collection of poems.
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Although Toad couldn’t keep to one thing . . .
Although Toad couldn’t keep to one thing, ending
up in a prison, all his friends got him his place
back at last. Although Tom, for his offending
that Mrs Doasyouwouldbe done by, came
to be covered in prickles, all his disgrace
little Miss Ellie removed with prayers. The shame
felt by Piglet at being bathed by Kanga
all went with rolling home in the dust. The Prince
couldn’t marry the beautiful Rosalba,
but at the last minute he found he could, since
Fairy Blackstick allowed him. Don’t ask, later,
what had happened to Grimes in Etna’s crater.
(Hennet 429)
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THE HORWICH HENNETS
Price £7.95 per copy post free (£5.30 post free to Associate Members)
Cover design: by Edmond Leo Wright. (Reproduced from the Ordnance Survey Map with the sanction of the Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. Crown copyright reserved).
Publication: 1976 (56 pages laminated paperback)
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