Made in England - Ian McMillan

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Ian McMillan

Ian is poet-in-residence for The Academy of Urbanism and Barnsley FC. He's Yorkshire TV's Investigative Poet and Humberside Police's Beat Poet. Ian is an honorary doctor of Sheffield Hallam and Huddersfield universities and North Staffs Polytechnic.

Winds of Yorkshire - A collection

Spiky wind, Whitby's edge.
Warm wind from the open oven doors of Sunday mornings.
A kissing wind as the starling panics close to my face.
A wind delivered first class from Russia, high on these moors; I
Had to sign for it, but my hand was shaking.

I've collected them for years. Keep them in a room marked 'wind'.
Listen to them when the world gets quiet.

I call this one 'Ilkley Moor'. I was baht 'at. The wind
Lifted my hair and made it wave.
York wind, holding bells' sonorities, letting them go.
Screeching Malham wind: I suppose the first wind was this fierce,
This unforgiving.

My collection is growing. Soon it will outgrow this shed,
Explode into the world like a firework made of breeze.

Leeds wind: 24 hour wind for a 24 hour city, Evening Posts
Swooping like gulls. Almost windless day, somewhere
In the centre of Tong where the wind is so gentle
It feels like it was texted here: wnd.
Crackpot wind: sheep do fly, it seems. Or hover, woolly.

Come inside. Feel the county's invisible hands, invisible history.
Wind holds everything, then lets it fly.

A Rotherham zephyr, cool as you like, early morning by
The river, altered slightly by a taxi passing. Muker wind:
I made a sandwich of this one, it was so thick and tasty.
Holmfirth and Upperthong; only a couple of miles apart
But the winds so different, like coconut and cello.

As my dad said 'They drink bottled water, kid, but they
Should be pouring bottled wind over their heads...'

Disclaimer: the views expressed in the copyrighted poems and essays are the views of the author alone, and are not endorsed or otherwise by the BBC or Arts Council in any way whatsoever.