I don’t really consider myself a poet. On the few occasions I write them, I’m always quietly surprised that my poems seem to strike a chord with people, as it’s not a form I feel I can commit to while storytelling and prose sing so much louder. That said – every so often there’s something which can only be a poem – often when I’m angry, or sad, or awestruck.
Awe is important to me. Awe is my religion, unhooked from any god or scripture. Any interaction with the wilder word is my worship. A goldfinch on the teasel, whale bones on the beach; spiderwebs, the graves on Isle Maree. When I was commissioned to write a poem for filmmaker Dom Bush, it was awe that spoke to me.
Dom has made a stunning film about the National Trust reserve of Sandscale Haws. I spent a day there, whipped by wind, wandering the dunes and the low tide shoreline, picking my path about the many million shells, watching terns, counting caterpillers on marram. Sandscale Haws has Viking roots – the name is sandra skali hawse, a home on the sands – and an industrial legacy of brickmaking. I drew on both in my poem, as well as the myriad species that live and thrive in the Duddon Estuary.
I’m sharing only my few words here; if you’d like to see the whole film, it’s here.