#526: John Clare and an Inherited Perspective

Another name which I hope the new specification introduces young people to is the poet John Clare.

He is the subject of a book by the London-based writer and psychogeographer Iain Sinclair, who traced his footsteps. The cover of the book can be seen below. It is called 'Edge of the Orison'.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/john-clare

Click the link to download the whole eBook - thanks to Nottingham Trent University. (PDF download)

Image via Wikipedia - Public Domain

#97: Ronald Blythe

Ronald Blythe died earlier this year, just after his 100th birthday.

He referred to local plants in an areas as "a form of permanent geography".

His writing spans many decades, and includes some classic texts.  There is a great deal that has been written both by and about him.

I recommend starting to build up your Blythe library to introduce students to the work of someone who was tied to a place, and looked at it in detail. 

He was closely linked with the late author Roger Deakin, who will also be mentioned here as well, particularly because of his book 'Wildwood', which was published posthumously.

He's one of the authors who is on my 'charity shop' list - whenever I go to a town I always check out the charity shop stacks and have certain letters I look at (if they are organised alphabetically that is...).

Akenfield has to be on the list of books, but also the various collections of his pieces for local newspapers and other publications.

It can be borrowed from the Internet Archive site.

There is also a 2022 anthology volume of his work called 'Next to Nature' which has come out recently, and contains a range of writing about natural history and what it means to connect with a place.

I'd be interested to hear your favourite Blythe pieces.