Pen Portrait - Richard Morwood
Richard Morwood has been writing poetry for over 20 years, mainly in the gaps between work demands, until 2018 when he completed the Manchester University MA in Creative Writing as a bridge into retirement. Now he writes in the gaps between retirement demands. Richard is also the Lancaster Stanza Rep and an active member of Brewery Poets and Dove Cottage Poets. When not doing poetry he enjoys walking, cycling, birdwatching, theatre and films and reading. He is currently working on a first collection of poems. His long poem Towton Field was first published in the Long Poem Magazine for May 2019 (Issue 21). The main voice in the poem is Jenett’s, a 15th century Welshwoman who returns to the Towton battlefield in the 21st century. There she buttonholes a metal detectorist, Martin, who is searching the field for arrowheads, and tells her story. She was present on the Yorkist side at this 1461 War of the Roses battle where she pulled 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. |
Reviews
“Towton Field is an extraordinary tour de force uniting history, myth and human relationships in one epic poem. Long Poem Magazine was delighted to discover a new poetic talent in full flight; Richard Morwood is a long poem natural.” Claire Crowther (Deputy Editor of Long Poem Magazine) “Richard Morwood’s Towton Field is a fascinating poem, drawing the reader in with its excavation of the old battlefield and its relish for weighing words and phrases which would bring home that world’s strangeness. Morwood finds a way into the material by choosing unusual and memorable perspectives, from the figure of a female archer to the ‘prickers’ who populate the battle’s aftermath, making us see this field of history in a new way.” John McAuliffe (Professor of Creative Writing and Co-Director of the Centre for New Writing at the University of Manchester) |
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Towton Field (Extract) Silver armour gravels in, spilling fresh knights on the field, centuries late; our lances break this ground’s long silence, bleating the small change of battle, the spurs, buckles, buttons, scrap and ring-pulls then these: iron teeth teased from the soil by a trowel’s gentle enquiry. Each bow-stitched point once marked the still-quick; each gap, the early dead. We welcome today’s new facts, their here and there plotted, numbered, snapped; stark geometry, satellite fixed. As I drift away, caressing the grass with steady sweep, searching for more, a woman’s voice grows in my headphones -- damn local radio -- but as it grows a lilting rhythm insists and holds: Richard Morwood, Towton Field (Write Lines Press, 2020). Available from the author via john.richard@rmorwood.com |
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