Portraits of Poets - Richard Morwood
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Richard Morwood has been writing for 17 years, until recently mainly between work demands. His Yorkshire connections are slim but he has lived in the county for 8 years albeit close to the border. Born in England, he grew up in the north-east of Scotland and has since lived and worked across the UK including a ten-year spell in South Wales. Latterly he has worked more widely across Europe, the US and elsewhere where it turns out the airports, hotels and meeting rooms are pretty similar even if the countries were sometimes more alarming e.g. arriving sleep-deprived and in the early morning in Saudi Arabia to deliver a training course and realising – a little late – that the 12 bars of Kendal Mint cake he’d brought to sweeten the delegates and help explain where he came from might look like something else on the security scanners. Fortunately the security men were charming and understood the power of sweets once he’d opened the suitcase and explained. |
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Richard’s first pamphlet Look Both Ways was published with Write Lines Press of Leyland in 2018. He completed the Manchester University MA in Creative Writing in 2018. Some of his work appears on-line in The Manchester Anthology VI . His poem ‘Towton Field’ has been accepted by The Long Poem Magazine for May 2019 (Issue 21). The main voice in the poem is Jenett’s, a 15th century Welsh huntswoman who has returned to (or remained on?) Towton battlefield where she buttonholes a metal detectorist (who is searching the field for arrowheads) and tells her story. She claims she was present on the Yorkist side at this 1461 War of the Roses battle where she pulls a longbow with the men – but it is her own rich story she wants to tell even as the battle develops and rages around her...
Richard enjoys walking, cycling, bird-watching, theatre and films, reading and writing.
Richard enjoys walking, cycling, bird-watching, theatre and films, reading and writing.
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Geriatric First kicks in 66; Suez baby thinks they always win, that this is all for him. Germany, twice beaten must lose again. Watching with Dad in an empty Mess, TV set aside, formica-altared on green lino, the ritual unfolds. Strange black and white gods sport new names, new magic: Wilson-Cohen, Banks and Balls, Peters, Charltons, Stiles and Moore. He learns Hurst, hat-trick, his Englishness; that palmed false teeth in handkerchief can herald unbridled celebration. No Hurst, he Banks for four glorious years in borrowed driving gloves till 1970 brings Bonetti and loss of certainty. Haller and Held are not remembered like English losers - Harald, Scott, Gascoigne. This trick he will hard-learn. by Richard Morwood from ‘Look Both Ways, WriteLines Press, 2018 |
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