Poetry In The Dale

Right, then. This is me off to Wales for a couple of weeks. In the meantime, there’s a festival -like event, or some may say, tour, of Weardale going on where poets stand up and do their stuff and people can come along and Not Pay Anything to listen, or , even, join in with their own pomes.

Poetry In The Dale has a programme of eleven poetic events over the next 3 months, including the production of a book of Weardale poems. Local poets will have an opportunity to have a page in the book.

There’s one such event at the Working Men’s Club in Wolsingham on 11 October starting at 7:00 pm.  Details of the other events will be revealed later….

I expect that people will also be able to buy beer and fruit-based drinks for the ladies…..

Here’s a Jules Clare poem wot he wrote:

A Wolsingham Tale

I have arrived at Wolsingham, the start of The Dale

A beautiful place, full of wonder and scale

A thriving market town, on the up,

on the level but definitely not down

There are cafes, pubs and a Working Men's Club

There's nature in all its glory

and Michael Caine is another story

There's a community, there's rural love

There's very little push and shove

There's Saint Godric and Elric and their well

Tunstall Reservoir around which

to romantically cast a spell

Attwood's old Holywood Hall hospital for all to see

A Pet Shop Boy who could have been me

There is an iron and steel works which is gone

and no longer struggling

The national economy's out for a mugging

The South East doesn't appreciate the North

Scenic holidays and exploitation

their only reasons to venture forth

There's a caravan seller called Robson's

A local Dales culture with strong Weardale farmers names

A season of shooting grouse with guns

A history written in the love and flames of desire

A railway to shift tubs of coal

The sons of Wael on which to draw one's soul

There's incomers hiding in millionaires' row

There's people who say this shouldn't be so

Matthew Harding had a house here a while back

His helicopter landed with regularity and did not crash

Cilla Black and Shirley Bassey visited on draft

but just like Shearer and Nail they were gone in a flash

A beautiful place, full of wonder and scale

I have discovered a rich tapestry of rural integrity and tale

I will leave feeling happy and content

and under the influence of Real Ale