I have been thinking about place and coastlines recently. I came across an exhibition of paintings by Emma Williams in Thompson’s Galleries, Aldeburgh – bright and cheerful depictions of Cornish and East Anglian coastal towns. Aldeburgh, full of pink, yellow and blue-fronted fishermen cottages, is home to Poetry in Aldeburgh which takes place 4-6 November. More information in my diary blog mid-October. 

Cornwall and Suffolk have many visitors all year round. I particularly enjoyed a poem by prize-winning poet Vanessa Lampert, reprinted here with kind permission of the poet and featured in the Live Canon 2022 anthology. Vanessa’s debut pamphlet ‘On Long Loan’ was also published by Live Canon. 

 

Cornish Morning 

Now blooming pink puffs of thrift, and puffs  

of lilac scabious wander over the cliff path.  

Now sea campion and celandine, now sun  

gilds this morning ruthless bright. No sadness  

has followed us here this time, no loss,  

so we walk where a skylark hangs his song  

above a gulley where a shipwreck rusts,  

no life was lost, and the gorse sings fierce  

of yellow. A cloud of migrant wheatears  

alights in a field by the path. Now the pale 

aquamarine sea, now black lichen and green  

grow on granite. Now warbler and chough  

trust their wings to the roughshod wind. It’s enough.  

Today there’s nothing left for us to mourn. 

 

This year I have read ‘The Salt Path’ and its follow-up ‘The Wild Silence’, both remarkable memoirs by Raynor Winn, living on and by the South West Coast Path. Such atmospheric writing. My own ‘take’ on a bit of north Cornwall is captured in three haiku which feature in a painting of the scene gifted to my daughter. It is lovely when art and poetry can speak to each other.  

 

Wheal Coates  

A flurry of clouds, 

the stone ruins of Wheal Coates 

listen to the sea.   

                        * 

The heather purple, 

weathered sky darkens the cliffs 

as long waves roll in. 

                        * 

Standing tall and bare, 

the figures of old tin mines 

haunt the Cornish coast. 

 

Cornwall has such a dramatic landscape. Suffolk is much gentler with winding estuaries, sandy and shingle beaches. I grew up close to the sea and have always had a healthy respect for the power of the tides. Two poets who have a strong interest in the coasts of Britain are Maria Isakova Bennett and Anne-Marie Fyfe. Maria incorporates hand-stitching in her amazing project Coast to Coast to Coast  and most recently she has done the cover for Clare Best’s collaborative pamphlet ‘End of Season’. Anne-Marie‘s 2019 collection ‘No Far Shore’ (Seren Press), takes the reader to coastlines far and wide, in both prose and poetry.  

The closer you are to the sea, the more you will experience the ever-changing light and wide skies. We all probably have seaside stories to tell, whether about ice cream, seagulls or sailing. I have written quite a few poems, trying to capture the sea – one described it as a feral cat in the ‘Herrings’ anthology, pub. Blue Door Press and Poetry in Aldeburgh, 2017. I grew up next to Butley Creek which leads out to the North Sea lining the horizon, tankers and ferries silhouetted against the sky. I often write poems about that place as it holds so many memories. One poem is on the website Places of Poetry, a wonderful site to look for poems responding to the UK coastline. 

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