Extract from ON WARWICK CASTLE

Warwick Castle, Warwickshire, England

Today, another short extract from my long poem ON WARWICK CASTLE, originally published by Nine Arches Press in whenever-it-was, now out of print but still available on Kindle as an ebook.

This poem was written during my year-long stint as Warwick Poet Laureate and is about the past and present Warwick Castle.

It was described by David Morley, poet and Director of the Creative Writing Programme at Warwick University, as 'a Modernist piece de resistance' - he also wrote the Foreword - and by David Floyd, writing in Sphinx, as 'one of the more ambitious works of public poetry generated through a local laureateship.'

So you have been warned ...

The old man sits behind them

on the grass, clay pipe stuck to his lip:

         ‘It was a day like this

         we rode against the King. Fifty years back.

         I was a boy then.’

A black mist, first thing,

and out of that mist,

the hiss of an arrow-storm, burning.

Those that survived

were sent down into the dark for it.

So, with the concealed blade

from a pocket knife, Master John Smith

etches out his name, and date

of his imprisonment:

Master John Smythe, Guner to his Majestye Highness

was a prisner in this place and lay here

from 1642 - tell the

Here, he's interrupted by the blade breaking

or a tour guide, descending.

There are rules even in darkness.

For a really serious breach,

the guide book tells him,

such as plagiarism or pastiche,

a man might be hung alive in chains

near the scene of his crime.

'Tell them,' he was to have finished,

         'I am a traveller in time,

         a master smith

         forged here in the shadows. I fall.

         I stop. My flesh decays.

         Yet here my name remains until

         the very end of days

         when there may be time

         for the courtyard gift shop, after all.

         Follow the signs.'

Up here in the light, every movement

                  is blinding.

         Stone light, grey

as a pigeon’s feather, cold on the rise

to Blacklow Hill

where Piers Gaveston fell: a moment’s struggle

in wet grass,

then the surprised head of the king’s lover

         rolls free, his lips drawn back,

still twitching.

Down in the village, a boy

armed with a spade

washes his face; trudges to work.

This rough mound, the sign says, was fortified

on the orders of William the Conqueror.

So, while Mercians dug, Normans sat,

pining for the wheat fields of France.

         Hony soyt quy mal pence.

1066 and All That.

         'No matter the right or wrong of it,

         we had to follow Warwick.

         Sheer black mist, first thing,

         and out of that mist,

         the hiss of an arrow-storm, burning.

         My father fell there in the confusion,

         a few miles shy of London.

         He died at Waterloo.

         Took a bullet in the Crimean.

         Fell at Ypres. Was listed

         among the missing.'

The boy stopped speaking ...

Read the rest of ON WARWICK CASTLE as a Kindle ebook. Currently only 77p!

On Warwick Castle: new digital edition

Browse on Amazon UK

Back in 2008, my poems from the Warwick Laureateship were published in pamphlet form by Nine Arches Press. Since that pamphlet 'On Warwick' is now out of print, there is a new digital version available on Kindle only.

Priced at only 77p, this new edition contains the long title poem 'On Warwick Castle', and two other poems commissioned during my stint as Warwick Poet Laureate, 'On the Renovations at Leamington Spa Station 2008' and 'Leamophants', on the history of elephants in Leamington Spa.

'On Warwick Castle': "On Warwick is the product of Jane Holland’s year as Warwick’s Poet Laureate. It’s not unusual for local laureates to write poems about major landmarks of the area, but the main poem in the collection, ‘On Warwick Castle’—described in David Morley’s foreword as Holland’s “modernist piece de resistance”—is probably one of the more ambitious works of public poetry generated through a local laureateship." David Floyd, writing in Sphinx.

High praise indeed!

If looking at this ebook on Amazon, do please click LIKE there if you feel able to. This apparently helps the book's visibility to browsing punters. Thanks!

Young Shakespeare: Victoria Lamb

Mealtimes for William Shakespeare would have looked very much like this, in his large and lively Warwickshire family.

I thought some of the readers of Raw Light might be interested in today's entry on my alter-ego Victoria Lamb's blog.

Some of you may know that I published the first book in a trilogy about Shakespeare's 'Dark Lady' in hardback earlier this year. It's called The Queen's Secret and is out in paperback in a couple of weeks.

In this first book, William Shakespeare is eleven years old and plays only a very minor role in the story. But he features as a point of view character in the second book, so his life as a child and young man in Stratford upon Avon is uppermost in my mind.

Please do hop over to read my entry on Young Shakespeare - and maybe click to Follow my blog there, if interested in updates on my fiction writing as Victoria Lamb.

Polesworth Poetry Trail, Warwickshire

Off to the pretty town of Polesworth in North Warwickshire tomorrow, to read some of my poetry and celebrate the opening of the Poetry Trail there, with which I was involved as Warwick Poet Laureate two years ago. Fellow poet John Siddique will also be there, as guest poet, and probably some of the other poets involved in the project. There may be music, dancing, a knees-up, perhaps even booze. Well, music anyway.

My commissioned poem on the River Anker has been set into several matching blocks of granite positioned beside the river itself. So human civilisations may rise and fall, an ice age may cover the earth and then thaw away, but Jane Holland's poem will remain etched in granite beside the River Anker in Warwickshire - no doubt much to the bemusement of future inhabitants.

"The Poets Trail, which was funded through the Advantage West Midlands Better Welcome programme, provides a series of poems showcased on small-scale sculptures.  The ten bespoke sculptures are dotted around Polesworth and up onto the canal towpath.  The poems were sought through a competition which saw entries come in from around the world.  The poems were decided by a panel of judges including the then Warwick Poet Laureate, Jane Holland."