Selected Poems

by Norman Nicholson

Genres: Poetry

Paperback

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

Norman Cornthwaite Nicholson OBE, was an English poet associated with the Cumbrian town of Millom. His poetry is noted for its local concerns, straightforward language, and elements of common speech. Although it is poetry for which he is chiefly known, he wrote many works in other forms: novels, plays, essays, topography and criticism.

Reviews

[Simon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Many of the twentieth century poets I like the best are reflected in the work of Norman Nicholson. He had his influences but I'll fight a round with anyone who would deny his influence on others. You'll find the musical cadences and rhythms to match Dylan Thomas and an understanding of man married to the landscape that characterises the poems of RS Thomas. You'll catch the morning hare or trout of Ted Hughes and, perhaps above the rest, (and he came after) the linking of the people's lives with landscape, social and economic history and politics and geology of Seamus Heaney. He also gives a remarkable sense of the glory of being alive that perhaps is best expressed by one who very nearly didn't make it. (And who ever afterwards had to count his every breath). Here is a poet who captures the pastoral in it's truth; not necessarily beautiful, but permanent and ever-changing. But also the industrial man-made glories of pit shaft and smelting shed. My favourite poems are of the southern lakeland fells and passes and, particularly his poems of Millom.

We think of Lulworth Cove or Granchester or Upper Lambourne or Rydal Water when we think of English poetry. We should think more often of the Duddon and the little industrial town almost overlooked even by those of us who were brought up across the estuary.

[Everett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spans 40 years of his work, from 1940 - 1980´s. He wrote his best work at the end of his life, old age/experience brought out his genius, as he simplified and communicated deep understanding of his material-universal material.

[James Askari · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nicholson stakes out the same poetic territory as Wordsworth, with the difference that whereas Wordsworth's Lake District is pastoral, Nicholson's is industrial. His conception of the human returning to nature--'His head/Was wrapped in a cap as green/As the lichened stone he sat on', of an old man on the verge of death--is often Wordsworthian. His early poems, of the first part of the 40s, and later works in this Selected, of the early 80s, describe natural processes, like the wind rising or falling, or 'butterbean'-smooth stones being carried by slantwise tides 'all around England'; these express for the weightiness of the human implicitly rather than otherwise, and tend to assimilate the human to nature in their thoughts about ageing or loss.

Many of the poems are portraits of Nicholson's town, Millom, whose iron mine takes thirty years to die, and his extended family. The 'seventeenth of the name', he worries that he can provide no great-grandchild to his forebears. His father, a shopkeeper, and Uncle Jack go for a 'fraternal walk' every Sunday. Jack is crushed to death in the now flooded mine under half a ton of haematite. The poet has a namesake, two years older and once his classmate at school, fat and shy, who also dies. The poems' tone is always considered, sometimes wry and rueful. There is little in the writing about poetry; though Nicholson does reflect on his mother's maiden name 'Cornthwaite ', supposing he 'lop[s],/Chop[s] and bill-hook[s]' the space for his poems.

With Nicholson's stealthy mixed metaphors, there are few memorable images. The rhythms are sturdy, not finely-caught. The line of full of stuff--'We scuffed through a scabbed and scruffy valley of ruddled rocks'. The beck almost infinitesimally slowly washes the stones down the fall--but Nicholson instinctively disbelieves in global warming and finds the 'toadstools' of Windscale baleful.

[David Watson · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a great range Norman Nicholson had as a poet. The celebrations of his northern English town and countryside were enjoyable but were kind of what I was expecting; however, there were some surprises in this collection that I wasn't. For example, he addresses astronomy in a couple of poems, and "The Undiscovered Planet", his ode to Pluto, really stands out - in just seven lines he neatly explains how Pluto was discovered not by being spotted but from astronomers noticing inconsistencies in Saturn and Uranus' orbits. In "Early March, 1941" acknowledges there was a war happening at the time, but also fabulously describes the unexpected early spring Britain experienced that year. "The Pot Geranium" and "A Garden Enclosed" are wonderful in their celebration of nature's simple pleasures. And to give a glimpse of Nicholson's prowess as a poet, here's a quote from "The Seven Rocks": "Mid-March weather, when the wind's wing and the gull's feather fly screaming off the sea together". A wonderful collection that really makes you feel as if you're in the north of England.

[Anthony Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very accessible collection, giving a personal account of a landscape, a townscape, a seascape, and an industrial and post-industrial community in Cumberland and then Cumbria in the 20th century.

[Matt Morris · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you're unfamiliar with Nicholson, an overlooked poet--or even if you're not--you may enjoy this link to a cool site: http://www.cleo.net.uk/resources/disp...