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| Candlestick Press September 2025 Thanks to the publishers for my copy of this poetry pamphlet |
Cumbria is a place of fellside and farmland, of lakes, saltmarsh and rugged coastlines. To the north lies the vast Solway Plain which looks across to Scotland.
The poems in this selection conduct us on a journey of lively contrasts. We encounter weather, sheep, history, rivers, towns, traffic and dialect, and experience the vividness of living in a place of “wide-lidded skies”. On a summer walk we enter a transfigured landscape:
“The highest reaches of the beech –
six trees close-packed – were flame and they were water.
The green sun, the red cattle, the blue-faced sheep:
everything primary-bright, solid…”
from ‘Cinderdale’ by Helen Farish
This is a selection that crackles with all the colour and energy of England’s most north-westerly county.
Jacob Polley is a poet and novelist who was born in Cumbria.
Poems by Josephine Dickinson, Helen Farish, WN Herbert, Kim Moore, MR Peacock, Jacob Polley, PhoebecPower, William Scammell, David Scott and Claudine Toutoungi.
📖 My Review
Just a couple of hours drive along the M6 motorway and I can be in Cumbria. This north-westerly county has a rugged beauty which, once experienced, never leaves you and the lure of the fells and mountains seeps into the marrow of your bones. Dotted with sheep, patchwork fields seem to roll along forever, against a backdrop of dark skies and scudding clouds :
“All summer the sheep were strewn like crumbs
across the fell, until the bracken turned brittle
and it was time they were gathered
into the green patchwork of closer fields..”
From Flanking Sheep in Mosedale by David Scott
Cumbrian dialect harks back to an older time when there was poetry in vernacular, banding together communities with patterns of speech we should barely understand and yet instinctively we of the north feel the meaning deep within our soul. I was especially thrilled to see the medieval village of Kirkoswald, a place my brother once called home, mentioned :
Who provides for the Hrafn his food?
Appleby Street and Kirkoswald.
Skinny Brant and Paradise Clough.
From Spells of the Raven by Josephine Dickinson
Reminding us that Cumbria shares itself with coastline is this beautiful poem:
A gull takes me to the edge of the town.
It is only grey here; great slates of it
and the roll and smash of sea into stone.
From Whitehaven by Claudine Toutoungi
Beautifully presented, Ten Poems from Cumbria is a wonderful addition to the collection of regional titles, bringing the county gloriously alive. Capturing the beauty, and the unspoiled majesty, and all gathered together with a beautiful cover, it’s a perfect gift instead of a card for anyone who has visited Cumbria or who calls this beautiful place home.
About the Publisher
Candlestick Press is a small, independent press publishing sumptuously produced poetry pamphlets that serve as a wonderful alternative to a greetings card, with matching envelopes and bookmarks left blank for your message. Their subjects include Mountains, Clouds, Walking, Birds, Wine and Happiness. Candlestick Press pamphlets are stocked by chain and independent bookshops, galleries and garden centres nationwide and available to order online.
Twitter/X @poetrycandle
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