D & W PUBLISHING - BOOKS, PAMPHLETS AND POEMS
  • DEMPSEY & WINDLE
  • Authors' pages A-B
    • Veronica Aaronson
    • Derek Adams
    • Timothy Adès
    • Gary Allen
    • Moira Andrew
    • David Ashbee
    • Wanda Barford
    • Ranald Barnicot
    • Kevin Bailey
    • William Bedford
    • Philip Bentall
    • David Bleiman
    • Marc Brightside
    • Trisha Broomfield
  • Authors' Pages C – G
    • Fiona Cartwright
    • Ian Caws
    • Ian Clarke
    • Mary Chuck
    • Stephen Claughton
    • Claudia Court
    • David Cooke
    • Alexandra Davis
    • Donall Dempsey
    • Ray Diamond
    • Tony Earnshaw
    • Scott Elder
    • Roger Elkin
    • Wendy Falla
    • Bert Flitcroft
    • Robbie Frazer
    • Dawn Gorman
  • Authors' Pages H - O
    • Charlotte Harker
    • Richard Hawtree
    • Georgia Hilton
    • Paul Jeffcutt
    • Margaret Jennings
    • Sue Johns
    • Peter W Keeble
    • Wendy Klein
    • Janet Loverseed
    • Jeremy Loynes
    • Valerie Lynch
    • Aiison Mace
    • Kyle McHale
    • Ayelet McKenzie
    • Heather Moulson
    • M.E.Muir
    • Ian Mullins
    • Patrick B Osada
  • Authors' Pages P – S
    • Linda Rose Parkes
    • Mark G Pennington
    • Nicky Phillips
    • Colin Pink
    • Jenna Plewes
    • Ray Pool
    • Harriet Proudfoot
    • Polly Roberts
    • Imogen Russell Williams
    • Julie Sampson
    • Carla Scarano D'Antonio
    • Richard Schwartz
    • Susan Jane Sims
    • Fiona Sinclair
    • Belinda Singleton & Kathryn Southworth
    • Kathryn Southworth
    • Kathleen Strafford
    • Paul Surman
    • Paul Sutherland
  • Authors' Pages T – Z
    • Cherrie Taylor
    • Laura Theis
    • Brad Walker
    • Sue Wallace-Shaddad
    • J S Watts
    • Poul Webb
    • John Wheeler
    • Richard Williams
    • Simon Williams
    • Geoffrey Winch
    • Lynn Woollacott
    • Richard Woolmer
    • Mantz Yorke
    • Damon Young
  • Anthologies
  • COMPETITION
  • SUBMISSIONS
  • Reviews of our books
  • Events
  • Notes
  • Contact Us

Richard Hawtree

The Night I Spoke Irish in Surrey
by Richard Hawtree

​Richard Hawtree’s poems have appeared in literary magazines including: The Stinging Fly, The Penny Dreadful, Banshee, SOUTH, and Scintilla. He has read his work at festivals, universities and bookshops across the U.K. and Ireland. He teaches Creative Writing at the University of Brighton. 
Picture
​Woke
for Francis Ledwidge
 
When you pass over the senseless shell holes
that separate sweet music from a bomb,
all of us are woke (as the young now say)
to the strafing mud in your poet’s lung.
 
Even if all the gas-sick stallions of Meath
gambolled right here in this dugout
not one would conjure your Picardy –
Francis, you breathe
 
sound horses for us all to tether
to trench-thin air we’ll wake together.


©Richard Hawtree
(From 'The Night I Spoke Irish in Surrey')




Picture
ISBN 978-1-907435-75-1
51 pages
15 x 21 cm
​RRP £8.00
​'In these poems of exquisite freshness, Richard Hawtree shows that he is one of those rare poets who, in the words of Seamus Heaney, invites us to be in ‘two times at the same place’. In this, his debut pamphlet, he conjures a world where the ‘dark matter’ of the past coexists, luxurious and palpable, with a deftly articulated present, where WAV files and fibre-optics channel Catullus and St Colman. Distinguished by a limber unforced command of form, by a sense of unbridled linguistic play, Hawtree sets us freewheeling through the Anglo-Celtic archipelago, exploring hidden linguistic byroads, historical cul-de-sacs and a turbulent modernity.'
 Billy Ramsell
 
Greg Freemen comments:
'Perhaps you need to be as well read as Richard Hawtree to truly appreciate the poetry in his rich, debut pamphlet collection. On the other hand, maybe it doesn’t matter. Most of the poems are inspired by, or versions of, something else, including a 13th century Westminster Abbey pavement, the Old Irish Instructions of King Cormac, and an early mediaeval Welsh lullaby. 
[...]

Other references include Catullus, the burning of Sappho’s poems, and a poem simply titled ‘Stray Versicles’ that includes a section about an Irish psalter raised from a bog. ‘Pastourelle’ is after Kit Marlowe, blending the old and up to date:

"Come live with me, beloved. Let us dwell
near pyramids of fractals no Egyptian
could possibly unscramble. Let us spell

out every pixel of our high res passion
within the stanzas of this pastourelle ..."

[ ... ]
The collection concludes with the title poem, ‘The Night I Spoke Irish in Surrey’, a madcap infiltration of the spirit of Ireland with a staid English home county, in which the poet succeeds in making that county sound quite exotic as he goes on a kind of linguistic and topographical bender, invoking such Surrey sights as  Virginia Water, the Mole Valley, the Hog’s Back, and Newlands Corner, before waking the morning after: “Next day we straggled out / over Waterloo Bridge - / the English jangling / in our sorry heads. “


(Full review: https://www.writeoutloud.net/public/blogentry.php?blogentryid=97543

Carla Scanaro reviews "The Nght I Spoke Irish in Surrey" on London Grip

Picture
  • DEMPSEY & WINDLE
  • Authors' pages A-B
    • Veronica Aaronson
    • Derek Adams
    • Timothy Adès
    • Gary Allen
    • Moira Andrew
    • David Ashbee
    • Wanda Barford
    • Ranald Barnicot
    • Kevin Bailey
    • William Bedford
    • Philip Bentall
    • David Bleiman
    • Marc Brightside
    • Trisha Broomfield
  • Authors' Pages C – G
    • Fiona Cartwright
    • Ian Caws
    • Ian Clarke
    • Mary Chuck
    • Stephen Claughton
    • Claudia Court
    • David Cooke
    • Alexandra Davis
    • Donall Dempsey
    • Ray Diamond
    • Tony Earnshaw
    • Scott Elder
    • Roger Elkin
    • Wendy Falla
    • Bert Flitcroft
    • Robbie Frazer
    • Dawn Gorman
  • Authors' Pages H - O
    • Charlotte Harker
    • Richard Hawtree
    • Georgia Hilton
    • Paul Jeffcutt
    • Margaret Jennings
    • Sue Johns
    • Peter W Keeble
    • Wendy Klein
    • Janet Loverseed
    • Jeremy Loynes
    • Valerie Lynch
    • Aiison Mace
    • Kyle McHale
    • Ayelet McKenzie
    • Heather Moulson
    • M.E.Muir
    • Ian Mullins
    • Patrick B Osada
  • Authors' Pages P – S
    • Linda Rose Parkes
    • Mark G Pennington
    • Nicky Phillips
    • Colin Pink
    • Jenna Plewes
    • Ray Pool
    • Harriet Proudfoot
    • Polly Roberts
    • Imogen Russell Williams
    • Julie Sampson
    • Carla Scarano D'Antonio
    • Richard Schwartz
    • Susan Jane Sims
    • Fiona Sinclair
    • Belinda Singleton & Kathryn Southworth
    • Kathryn Southworth
    • Kathleen Strafford
    • Paul Surman
    • Paul Sutherland
  • Authors' Pages T – Z
    • Cherrie Taylor
    • Laura Theis
    • Brad Walker
    • Sue Wallace-Shaddad
    • J S Watts
    • Poul Webb
    • John Wheeler
    • Richard Williams
    • Simon Williams
    • Geoffrey Winch
    • Lynn Woollacott
    • Richard Woolmer
    • Mantz Yorke
    • Damon Young
  • Anthologies
  • COMPETITION
  • SUBMISSIONS
  • Reviews of our books
  • Events
  • Notes
  • Contact Us