top of page
British Counties in Verse


Wreck Or Map: Glastonbury Lake Village And Writing The Detail That Survives
Two poems, both ending with a human structure underwater in the dark. Only one of them is still readable. The difference should change how you write. An artistic illustration of Glastonbury Lake Village In 1912, Thomas Hardy wrote about the wreck of the Titanic lying on the seabed — the jewels designed to dazzle now lying lightless, and the fish drifting past them asking what all this vanity could possibly have been for. It is one of the great poems in the language, and the w

Alden Carrow
4 days ago7 min read


Refusing a Legend: Writing Glastonbury Tor Minus Avalon | Somerset In Verse - Exmoor To Levels In Poetry
Glastonbury Tor is the most mythologised hill in England. I wrote a poem about clay shrinkage instead — and I am still not certain I was right. A realistic wide landscape photograph of Glastonbury Tor in Somerset, England, seen from across the flooded winter levels. Glastonbury Tor has been the Isle of Avalon since at least the twelfth century. It carries Arthur, Guinevere, Joseph of Arimathea, the Holy Grail, the ley lines and a great deal of living spiritual practice. Walk

Alden Carrow
Aug 257 min read


Somerset In Verse - Exmoor To Levels In Poetry: A Map Of Pressures, Not Roads
The fourth volume in British Counties In Verse arrives in paperback on Amazon on 3rd September 2026. Here is what it is, how it was written, and why it does not sound like the books that came before it. An illustrated image of Glastonbury Tor Somerset In Verse - Exmoor To Levels In Poetry. It began with a stone I had never looked at There is an outcrop of limestone on a Mendip hillside holding four hundred million years of pressure. I had walked over it in my head perhaps a h

Alden Carrow
Aug 115 min read
bottom of page