Shelling Peas with My Grandmother in the Gorgiolands
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Bloodaxe Books Ltd
Published:26th May '22
Should be back in stock very soon
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. 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. Sarah Wimbush is a Leeds poet who hails from Doncaster. She has published two pamphlets, Bloodlines (2020), winner of the Mslexia/PBS Poetry Pamphlet Competition 2019, which was also shortlisted in the Michael Marks Awards, and The Last Dinosaur in Doncaster (Smith|Doorstop, 2021), a winner of the Poetry Business Book and Pamphlet Competition in 2020. Shelling Peas with My Grandmother in the Gorgiolands is her first book-length collection.
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 *
ISBN: 9781780376165
Dimensions: 234mm x 156mm x 8mm
Weight: unknown
80 pages