Kirkstone Pass, from Cumbria In Verse – Lakes To Fells In Poetry An illustrated image of a dramatic single-lane mountain road climbing a steep one-in-four gradient through the Lake District fells, Kirkstone Pass, Cumbria. The gradient tightens to a one-in-four strain where the road binds the volcanic flank. Gravity drags the scree in a slow descent toward the valley floor, scoured by ice. At the saddle, the world contracts to a line. Dry-stone walls brace against the heavy fe

Some places give themselves up in an afternoon. Others withhold, and ask to be read the way we read a difficult poem — slowly, twice, out loud if no one is listening. Brampton is one of the withholding kind. I went looking for its official history and found four ledgers stacked one on top of another, and then I went looking for something the ledgers could never hold. Here, first, is the poem that came out of that looking. Read it before you read anything I have to say about i

There is a peculiar weight to a landscape that refuses to be merely seen. Cumbria, with its ancient fells and brooding lakes, holds such a weight. It is a place that insists on being felt, walked, breathed, and, in my current work, written. For the past months, my focus has been entirely consumed by the slow, often arduous, process of shaping this particular corner of England into language, for a collection I'm calling 'Cumbria In Verse – Lakes To Fells In Poetry', due for pu