This highly accomplished debut collection explores what it means to belong, what it means to be on the margins. This is poetry written in praise of family and community and those qualities which make us human: love, language and, most of all, resilience.
In Shelling Peas with My Grandmother in the Gorgiolands Sarah Wimbush journeys through myth and memory with poetry rooted in Yorkshire. From fireside tales of Romany Gypsies and Travellers, through pit villages and the haunt of The Miners' Strike, to the subliminal of the everyday
including poems about typists, pencil sharpeners and learning to drive in a Ford Capri.
By:
Sarah Wimbush
Imprint: Bloodaxe Books Ltd
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 234mm,
Width: 156mm,
Spine: 8mm
ISBN: 9781780376165
ISBN 10: 1780376162
Pages: 80
Publication Date: 15 November 2022
Audience:
General/trade
,
ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
I 11 House 12 White Cottage 13 Shelling Peas with My Grandmother in the Gorgiolands 14 Mother Tongue 16 Dukkering 17 Carroty Kate 18 Gran Violet Applies a Poultice 19 Gal 20 The Hedgehog’s Tale 21 John Thomas 22 Pitched early mornin’ at encampment o’ Gypsy king Esau Smith 23 Scrapping at Marshall’s Engineering, Gainsborough 24 I can see Sandbeck Hall 25 Them Dunstan Kids 26 Our Jud 27 Threshin’ 28 Straw Ticks 29 Bedsheet 30 Meat Puddin’ 31 Laneham Ferry 32 The Bittern 33 The Calling Basket 34 A Sund’y in Worksop 35 Late Afternoon by a Hedge 36 Census 1911 37 Earring 38 The Ring 39 Walking Girl 40 The Astronaut Who Came to Tea 42 In the Library 43 Gifts 44 Bloodlines II 46 Pilgrim Queens 47 Things My Mother Taught Me 48 Inside Lingerie 49 2:15 at Doncaster 50 The Pencil Sharpener 51 Giant Leaping 52 I learned to drive in a metallic blue Ford Capri 53 Visiting My Aunt on Her Birthday, 1st September 1979 54 Uncle Reg 55 Between Mary Berry’s Baking Bible and My Class Enjoys Cooking 56 Rebel 57 A Spring Morning 58 Vixen 59 Pompocali 60 Trip to the National Portrait Gallery, with the wife 61 The Powder-monkey’s Apprentice 62 Peasholm Park 63 Blood Sugar 64 William Shaw is lowered down the shaft 65 Hillards 66 STOP! 67 Rosso Youthy 1984 68 Near Extinction 70 Markham Main 71 The York, Edlington 72 The Lost 74 Our Language 77 Acknowledgements
Sarah Wimbush is a Leeds poet who hails from Doncaster. Her debut poetry pamphlet, Bloodlines, won the Mslexia/PBS Poetry Pamphlet Competition 2019. It was published in 2020 by Seren and shortlisted in the Michael Marks Awards. In 2020 she was a winner in The Poetry Business Book and Pamphlet Competition with The Last Dinosaur in Doncaster, published by Smith|Doorstop in 2021.She is a member of York Stanza and Doncaster Read 2 Write, and received a Northern Writers' Award in 2019.
Reviews for Shelling Peas with My Grandmother in the Gorgiolands
There is a Romany saying, We are all one: all who are with us are ourselves: Sarah Wimbush’s collection draws us into the world of Travellers with linguistic panache and delight. -- David Morley * on Bloodlines * A vivid love poem to the changing landscape of South Yorkshire and its residents. The poet suggests the teeming life of the place which langugage which rolls along on its own lively music and images that sing. -- Imtiaz Dharker * on The Last Dinosaur in Doncaster * The writing felt local and universal like much good writing does, saying new things about old subjects like The Miner’s Strike and growing up, and there was a powerful anger in the poems that didn’t overwhelm them but fuelled the ordinary. -- Ian McMillan * on The Last Dinosaur in Doncaster * A thrilling debut that kept me outdoors in the grassy world of communal lives. I love the formal dazzle and linguistic dare that spoke of defiance, survival and utter joy. -- Daljit Nagra * on Bloodlines *
