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Sample poems: Heatwave (first published in Stand, Jan 2020)
Available from Drunk Muse Press |
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The Red House ('La Maison Rouge') was the last silk spinning mill in France, an industry which reached its peak here in 1853 and ended in 1965 when this mill in the Cévennes mountains closed its doors for the final time. It is now a museum about Cévenol life. Using museum objects as starting points, the poems in this volume explore the history and culture of this sparsely populated part of France, a region which RL Stevenson crossed in 1878, often comparing it with rocky, heather-filled areas of Scotland, and recounting his journey in Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes. I have lived in a remote valley of the Cévennes since 2001 and weave my own experiences as an incomer through this narrative, as well as the lives of my neighbours and people who live there today – goat herders, smallholders, odd jobbers, restaurateurs, hunters, foresters: taciturn yet with a deep sense of community and communion with the land. The Red House draws out their stories, and with them, our own relationships with time and place.
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