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Veronica was a multi-talented woman who moved to the village of Lawkland in Bowland in 2009 with her husband Richard and daughter Lizzie. She wrote poetry and plays and was also a photographer and publicity consultant. She took a course of creative writing at Keele University. She was a founder member of Settle Sessions and chaired the poetry group for a number of years. Her first publication was Two Left Boots in 2016, and it quickly sold out. In a review by Helena Nelson published in Sphinx magazine she wrote: A few of the poems are expertly disciplined and have precisely the right shape and sound for themselves. Anybody can format lines into a shape. Few poets can do it in a way that startles the reader into unexpected vividness – as happens here. The poem below is one that Helena particularly praised. Veronica died of cancer in December 2017. She is much missed by the group. Fisherrow Press brought out her posthumous pamphlet Dancing to Another Tune in March 2019. |
LAWKLAND
It’s the ewe calling her lamb and high-pitched reply, it’s the faint smell of manure hanging in the air, it’s the chaos of swallows playing tag, the drone of the tractor as if sleeves rolled up, a silent hot air balloon in early morning, a hare stretching its legs, sunbathing midday. It’s a deer eating roses in late afternoon, then the roar of fighter planes ripping through the peace. It’s the ‘paper delivered by the Postman on his eighty-four-mile round six days a week, horizontal rain, home-made woodsmoke, the queue for the oil-tanker, snail-speed broadband. It’s waiting for snow to stop in a Breugel scene, then, splintered by four-by-fours, melting into mud. It’s how heavy dark can be or light midsummer, and the bite of winter nights. And it’s the stars. |