Having read through 4 days digests
catching up on a full inbox
I have to say that I have always been
much influenced by places, the environment
and the people within those places.
Being an ardent Yorkshireman
I do feel my roots are there.
When first got interested in writing poetry
I was living in Glasgow.
I discovered the small presses
and started submitting poems
but it was when I discovered Pennine Platform
(actually just called Platform then)
and I immediately felt at home there
because the poets were talking about the places
and people that were familiar to me.
That's not to say the magazine was paraochial
it's roots were in the Pennines
but its boundaries were international.
I recall that they published a poem of mine in one issue
and the front cover listed seperately
Pennine Poets
and
Guest Poets
but I wasn't listed in either section!
I felt very like an ex-pat.
Which reminds me that
Huddersfield was a centre for poetry
long before the days of Peter Sansom
as Ian McMillan acknowledged
in a radio program
I still have a recording of.
Having lived for many years on what some would describe as
"the wrong side of the Pennines"
I think that while my roots have certainly influenced me as a writer
it hasn't been to the exclusion of other influences.
Gerald England
(who despite his surname considers himself
Yorkshire first
then British
but never English)
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|