Wednesday 16 April, 1941 ‘5am: Report very bad night, everyone behaved splendidly’ This building, dressed in a collar of smoke, at whose feet only fog and ash flower, whose bricked heart hides Wellington’s monument, prepared for the inevitable blasts. Unsleeping structure, lit by the Thames’ glow, building of contradiction, vulnerable, and yet, still, imposing in […]
821.92 English poetry--2000-
Safety Briefing
This slow current won’t capsize a kayak, but watch for the surge when the lock gates open: you can brace against barge-wash with the back of your blade, trim your boat in response to the flow, take the turns on an edge. Keep the whole of your torso over the boat and reach out your […]
Maintenance
for Kevin and Taryn A mechanism I am yet to understand, but wind and push and mimic the contraflow, the reading of the depths. Hello. A cheerful, solemn duty. To differentiate from its namesake we say a pair of compasses, like trousers; the lockgates make you part of their machine, the boat a bubble in […]
80,000 Gallons to a Lock
Skipton to Greenberfiled, 2016 In the roar of 80,000 gallons to a lock The engine thrums through my bones from ankle to temple. I am an antennae channelling a past I cannot know. 40 tonnes of coal via wheelbarrow on a single plank, the bargeman’s equilibrium. I wonder if he read the first signs of […]
Nancy Campbell
Nancy Campbell is the current Canal Laureate. A writer who works across disciplines, from poetry and essays to publishing artist’s books, she grew up in the Scottish Borders and Northumberland and her work is informed by these landscapes and borderlines. A series of residencies with Arctic research institutions has resulted in projects responding to cultural and climate […]
Simon Armitage
Simon Armitage was born in West Yorkshire and is Professor of Poetry at the University of Leeds. A recipient of numerous prizes and awards, he has published eleven collections of poetry, including Seeing Stars (2010), The Unaccompanied (2017) and his acclaimed translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (2007). He writes extensively for television […]