About Me

Born Aberystwyth. Student London and Wells;in Birmingham U chaplain, theatre critic, arts administrator, as a poet pt posts at Warwick (Writing Programme) and Birmingham U (Lifelong Learning) U; residencies at poetry festivals, in psychiatric and general hospitals and at Worcester Cathedral; Birmingham Poet Laureate 1997-98, has won 1st and 2nd in National Poetry Comp.. My Running out, Five Seasons Press is a collecting together of work since Setting the poem to words (1998) and Crag Inspector (2002). My ancestry is in London, mainly the East End (and South Essex), where people I can trace came from across the country in the late 18th to mid-19thC. Names include on my father's side: Hart, Restell, Lewis, Yelverton, Copeland, Wrenn,. And on my mother's side: Cole, Brown, Stanley, Pond, Bradley. I am an elected Member of the Welsh Academy. Titanic Cafe poem booklet 2009 and Misky (Flarestack). 2012-13 Library of Birmingham Poet. Library Inspector or The One Book Library (Nine Arches, 2015). Currently working on poems.Email djhart11(at)mac.com.

Sunday 13 February 2011

I am working on a series of poems of early memories; here is one of them, thinking of having moved as a family, when I was 15, from Aberystwyth to Chelmsford, Essex:

When I acquired my

ROAD ATLAS

3 MILES

TO 1 INCH

a book

for cycling, I lived (I wrote in pencil)

at 28 Heol Nanteos

Maesybwlch

Penparcau

and the only scribble in it (in pencil),

living then (in pencil) in

Chelmsford, Essex

says

Just after turning off for Braintree (5.30)

'Owen Glendower' pulling its train came by.

4 comments:

Jonathan Chant said...
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Penelope Farmer said...
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Penelope Farmer said...
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Unknown said...

I love the way the graphology echoes the different registers - map, adult poet, schoolboy scribble. So understated. So evocative of the other story about Welsh-English language-identity - something that touches my hiraeth too.