PETERLOO ANTHOLOGY 1
Edited by Harry Chambers

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NEW POEMS by

Elizabeth Bartlett ~ Michael D. Butler ~William Clarke
Stanley Cook ~Anthony Edkins ~ U.A. Fanthorpe ~ Duncan Forbes
Frank Goodridge ~ John Gurney ~ Keith Howden ~ Jim Howell
Eric Millward ~ Elma Mitchell ~ John Mole ~ David Pownall ~ William Scammell
Peter Scupham ~ David Selzer ~Gordon Symes ~ Edmond Leo Wright

TRANSLATION from

Corbière by Christopher Pilling

RADIO SCRIPT by

F. Pratt Green

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Earthed
by U.A. Fanthorpe

Not precisely, like a pylon or
A pop-up toaster, but in a general
Way, stuck in the mud.

Not budding out of it like gipsies,
Laundry lashed to a signpost, dieting on
Nettles and hedgehogs,

Not lodged in its layers like badgers,
Tuned to the runes of its home-made walls, wearing
Its shape like a skin,

Not even securely rooted, like
Tribesmen tied to the same allotment, sure of
The local buses,

But earthed for all that, in the chalky
Kent mud, thin sharp ridges between wheel-tracks, in
Surrey’s wild gravel,

In serious Cotswold uplands, where
Limestone confines the verges like yellow teeth,
And trees look sideways.

Everything from the clouds downwards holds
Me in its web, like the local newspapers,
Routinely special,

Or Somerset belfries, so highly
Parochial that Gloucestershire has none, or
Literate thrushes,

Conscientiously practising the
Phrases Browning liked, the attitude Hughes noticed,
Or supermarkets

Where the cashiers’ rudeness is native
To the district, though the bread’s not, or gardens,
Loved more than children,

Bright with resourcefulness and smelling
Of rain. This narrow island charged with echoes
And whispers snares me.

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PETERLOO ANTHOLOGY 1
Price £7.95 per copy post free (£5.35 post free to Associate Members)
Cover illustration: Engraving by Diolot (15th Century French Artist). Title unknown.
Publication: 1979 (128 pages laminated paperback)