Winter Migrants

by Tom Pickard

Winter Migrants opens with Tom Pickard's prize-winning sequence 'Lark & Merlin', an erotic pursuit over the hills and fells of the poet's Northern-English homeland. Stotting clough and gill in sneaping winds, leaping burns by backlit larches, waves of sleek grass skiffing mist ... here, says the poet, 'the weather is overseer'. The borders between body and landscape, desire and object, blur in the mammal heat of pursuit, of a lover, of a self, insatiable and unresolvable. There follows a selection from the Fiends Fell Journals, a haibun or poetry-diary, composed over the decade Pickard lived alone on the wind-blown North Pennines. Short poems dedicated to friends and acerbic, satirical poems lend the second half of Winter Migrants a playful warmth and tonic mischief. As the collection draws to a close, the poems return to the familiar horizon of Solway Firth, the estuary 'where winter migrants gather in long black lines', and the world, cooled now both inside and out, a curlew gifts its 'estuary echo'; gulls make a 'confetti flurry' above the shoreline; and clouds, once pale and flitting, pour purple and gold, 'a mercury whisper of tipped-in light'. // 'I am an old admirer of Tom Pickard's poetry and believe as does Basil Bunting that he is one of the most live and true poetic voices in Great Britain.' (Allen Ginsberg)

Genres: Poetry

86 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 15, 2016

About the author

Tom Pickard, a Newcastle-born writer who left school at 14 and fell swiftly under the spell of American Beat poetry and poets, was not only present at the birth of the British Poetry Revival in 1965 but also is credited with leading the charge.

The author of 10 books of poetry and prose, Pickard will present a poetry@mit reading on Thursday, Nov. 18 at 7 p.m. in Room 6-120.

As a poet, Pickard is known for his poetic range, from erotic to political, from lyrically delicate to poignantly sad to bluntly expletive-driven. He was described as a "voice of finesse and powerful emotion" by The Guardian (UK). In the preface to "F***wind," former Beatle Paul McCartney wrote, "This collection of poems and songs soars over the fells, screeching truth, sex, humor, anger and love."

During the 1960s, Pickard ran bookstores and organized readings in England by well-known American beat poets including Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Gregory Corso. The British Revival is said to have grown out of these efforts, bringing wit, modernism, romance, excess and sexual expressiveness to poetry.

Pickard, 58, lives on the edge of Fiends Fell on the English-Scottish border. He has directed and produced a number of documentary films for British television and is currently writing a libretto for composer John Harle. "The Ballad Of Jamie Allan" is based on the 18th-century gypsy whose reputation as a great musician was matched by his reputation as an outlaw. from MIT NEWS http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice

Reviews

[Normfg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tom Pickard is a superb voice of England's north east. This book is a collection on his most recent poems; most quite short. Almost minimalist, but full of lines you just want to re-read. There are also
some "journal-like" prose pieces. A poet with experiences reaching back to Ginsberg, Creeley , Basil Bunting, but undoubtedly a voice of today. Great honesty. Great respect for language, both "received" and the powerful vernacular of his native NE.

[Paul Secor · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a more recent publication than High on the Walls, which I reviewed recently. Tom Pickard developed a more assured voice over the years.

a heron
criss-crosses the lashing syke,

its spikey tread sunk
in unscuffed snow

patient
and hungry as death

no inkling of urgency
in its measured step

close, almost overlapping,
at the water's edge



wind riven
wind driven waves
belly flop on rock

what the heart loves
loves not the heart



"Work"

As I knelt at a cold stove

waiting for a long draw
to catch my light

and take my time,
my key element,

a threshing rain
laid into the roof.

When the stove lit
I thought of her
and desire,

and what an exquisite word
that is



"For Bob"

The whole sweep
of the day.

If I were Creeley
I'd know what I meant
and make it a poem
But I'm not
and I don't
and I have.

Again - If you like any of these poems, you might want to buy the book and read more. If they don't grab you, seek out and find poems that do and read them.
Poets (at least, good ones) are an endangered species. They need and deserve our attention and support.

[Charlie Irving · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exactly what the valley is, through the lense it should only ever be looked at from

[Liam Guilar · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is excellent. The description of the book at the top of the page is laughably inaccurate...so maybe it's someone's idea of a joke.
Book is split into three parts: two sequences: 'Lark and Merlin', and 'from Fiends Fell Journal' and a third section made up of individual poems.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb.