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Celebrating the history and beauty of the north east
Wednesday 17th September 2025
Ten Poems from Northumberland
Northumberland is border country – a place of ballads and battles and windswept beaches where grand castles stand sentinel. This mini anthology celebrates the wild beauty of the county’s landscapes, where the past still seems to linger in the ruggedness of rock and moorland.
Water laps at the edges of many of the poems. There’s an evocation of crossing the causeway to Holy Island as the tide swirls inward and a paean to Berwick upon Tweed with its “platinum threadings of submersion”.
There’s also a poignant elegy to the famous sycamore that was illegally felled in 2023. The poem honours a tree that was loved by many, keeping it alive for us all in language.