Body of Writing – Philip Hood
Body of Writing is a collection of poetry threads created since 2017. More work will be added to each thread as it is written and some editing may occur to material which is already published on the site.
The threads sometimes interweave; landscape and climate themes appear extensively alongside reflections on human activity through time, especially within the landscapes where people are rooted, where they live and work. Some of the writing explores geological or botanical ‘life’ within those landscapes. The landscapes in focus are often drawn from the North East of England but Scotland and Northern Europe are also present.
The threads, none of which are yet complete, are accessible via the menu button above and currently consist of:
Ten Miles of Coast (featuring the coastline between Cresswell and Amble, Northumberland)
A soft southerner approaches the Pitmen Painters (featuring an incomer’s response to some of the artwork of the Ashington Group located at Woodhorn Museum. This equates to a bridge in the poet’s growing understanding and not any kind of evaluation of the artwork)
Rocks and Plants, (featuring botanical and geological themes, arranged at random as are rocks and plants)
The Isle of Mull, (featuring poetry written on two initial visits to the island)
Chaunce and Allotment (featuring poems which consider issues around the use of land and its ownership through time; additionally the themes include the ways in which land-based resources are exploited and managed)
Other Geographies (featuring poems rooted outside the UK)
Infrastructures (featuring poems which juxtapose perceptions of the nature of living spaces of humans and other life-forms, for example those of seabirds who literally live in the air and in water)
A blog about poetry and poetics (still in formation)
Body of Writing 