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Roadworks
- Poems from the A6
updated 27/05/04 |
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You'd
think that a subject matter such as the A6 wouldn't be very inspiring
for a group of poets. But you'd be wrong. Life along Manchester's
A6 corridor has been captured in a new book of poetry by a group of
people appropriately called The A6 Poets. |
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Roadworks |
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From cobble stones to tarmac
our road has seen the change.
From horse manure to diesel fumes
from open ditch to drains.
From Roadsong by Bill Mitton |
Roadworks:
Poems from the A6, is the culmination of a twelve month project
set up by three local poets, Suzanne Batty, Cathy Bolton and Jan
Whalen who wanted to encourage local people to write about their
experiences of living in the area.
The
end product is a collection of witty and moving poems that manage
to capture the true mood of the area in a way that outsiders couldn't,
but without alienating any reader who may have never been closer
than Milton Keynes.
You could be forgiven for thinking that these poems could be appropriate
to any busy urban road on the outskirts of a major city, but you'd
be wrong.
What
we have here is a collection of poetry that gets under the tarmac
and behind the boarded up windows along the A6 corridor. Don't expect
rose tinted glasses because the real beauty of the subject matter
is its raw urban weathered existence.
Richard Fair
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Silver
Top
by Ian Dogherty
heavy overcoat with dark brown buttons,
rolling along like an old oil tanker.
聭off to get mitzi some whiskas love聮,
door shutting easily now it聮s summer.
smells of baking and lilly of the valley,
kettle whistling while the pot stands waiting.
she was silver top milk daily delivered,
dust in the rugs beaten on the line,
a cup of tea and some dry bread and butter,
a clothes peg dolly on the sill in the sun.
and for each and every of those 30 years waiting,
she tended the flowers above her now
next to her husband, hydrangers blooming
聭don聮t forget to feed my cat聟聮
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In
a nutshell:
Roadworks: Poems from the A6
Published on May 27th
Panshine Press 拢3.50
What do you want to do now?
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主播大秀
Manchester website, New Broadcasting House, PO Box 27, Oxford Road, Manchester,
M60 1SJ
Telephone 0161 200 2020 | e-mail manchester.online@bbc.co.uk |
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