The title was taken from the first poem featured in a new book of 25 poems/images made during the period December 2019 - February 2021. Much of the work is centred on the area of Upper Nithsdale in Dumfries & Galloway, with the backbone being the rivers Nith and Scaur as well as the stones, crosses, cairns, follies and menhirs of the surrounding landscape.
2020 will long be remembered for COVID 19 and lockdowns. The premise behind some of the other poems was fairly simple, the idea of poet responding to artist and artist responding to poet. All the work was created remotely from our respective locations in France and Scotland via social media.
The final section consists of five poems based on found copper plate engravings by French artist Serge Arnoux who died in 2014. After his death, a batch of his etching plates ended up in a scrapyard in Sarlat France where they were destined to be melted down in the furnace and subsequent to their rescue it seemed a good idea to breath new life into what had nearly been lost forever. The plates were reprinted with added colour and combined with poems written as a direct response to imagined subject matter.
Click on the link
" Fall of Bridges and the Triumph of Poetry" to access the digital flipbook.