 | Roadworks - Poems from the A6
updated 27/05/04 | | |
|  | | You'd think that a subject matter such as the A6 wouldn't be very inspiring for a group of poets. But you'd be wrong. Life along Manchester's A6 corridor has been captured in a new book of poetry by a group of people appropriately called The A6 Poets. | | | |  Roadworks | | |
 From cobble stones to tarmac
our road has seen the change.
From horse manure to diesel fumes
from open ditch to drains.
From Roadsong by Bill Mitton |
Roadworks: Poems from the A6, is the culmination of a twelve month project set up by three local poets, Suzanne Batty, Cathy Bolton and Jan Whalen who wanted to encourage local people to write about their experiences of living in the area. The end product is a collection of witty and moving poems that manage to capture the true mood of the area in a way that outsiders couldn't, but without alienating any reader who may have never been closer than Milton Keynes.
You could be forgiven for thinking that these poems could be appropriate to any busy urban road on the outskirts of a major city, but you'd be wrong. What we have here is a collection of poetry that gets under the tarmac and behind the boarded up windows along the A6 corridor. Don't expect rose tinted glasses because the real beauty of the subject matter is its raw urban weathered existence.
Richard Fair
Silver Top
by Ian Dogherty
heavy overcoat with dark brown buttons,
rolling along like an old oil tanker.
off to get mitzi some whiskas love,
door shutting easily now its summer.
smells of baking and lilly of the valley,
kettle whistling while the pot stands waiting.
she was silver top milk daily delivered,
dust in the rugs beaten on the line,
a cup of tea and some dry bread and butter,
a clothes peg dolly on the sill in the sun.
and for each and every of those 30 years waiting,
she tended the flowers above her now
next to her husband, hydrangers blooming
dont forget to feed my cat
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In a nutshell:
Roadworks: Poems from the A6
Published on May 27th
Panshine Press £3.50
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