East Anglian poetry books

Martin Newell is a writer, musician and broadcaster. The author of ten collections of verse and one memoir, he was a writer and singer for rock bands for two decades before becoming poet-in-residence for The Independent newspaper in early 1991.

Newell remained with the Independent for 12 years, often writing anything up to four pieces a week for them, – rightfully gaining him the title of 'most-published living UK poet'. Despite this success Newell stayed – and continues to stay – close to his roots in East Anglia, rather than decamping to the metropolis. It is his love of the East Anglian region and in particular, north-east Essex which is the bedrock of his written work. His poems are full of the green copses, overgrown churchyards and sharp winter light of East Anglia. Newell's poems are England seen through a broken gate or from a bicycle going at an appropriate speed.

Poet-in-Residence with the Sunday Express and a regular contributor to The East Anglian Daily Times, Martin Newell is increasingly becoming known on BBC national radio, as well as television, guesting on programmes such as A Good Read, Off The Page and Open Book. He has also been the subject of several TV documentaries including A Life Of Rhyme and BBC1's Inside Out documentary Rock Ferry, broadcast in 2008.

A Return to Flanders

A Return to Flanders is a moving 350-line poem, in ten chapters, about the effect of the Great War on Newell's family and, indirectly, upon himself. Little more than that needs to be said. We recommend instead that the reader opens the book and begins to read.

Late Autumn Sunlight

"I've wandered the saltings and creeks of the Blackwater and Colne rivers and walked and cycled the lanes further inland. I know most of the villages between Colchester and Clacton, their orchards, their fields, and farms. When I recently took a holiday, for the first time in years, I agonised for days over where to go, before cycling fifty miles up the road and spending it in Dunwich, Westleton and Walberswick. Indeed, if I was forbidden to leave East Anglia ever again, that would be fine by me. I could spend another thirty years taking trains and bicycles round the place and still not have enough time to see it all. I've always found the area very inspirational - particularly the woods, farmlands and lanes near to where I live. The poems within these pages are some of my impressions of the place."
Martin Newell, Wivenhoe, Autumn 2001

Newell and Dodds show how close they are… their work is a combination of doing - and dreaming. The pace is set to some extent by the poet's bike and by the slowed-up discipline of the linocut. Nothing flashes past them or is dashed off. There is contemplation. East Anglians are returned to their roots, non-natives given a delightful crash course on what these coastal counties really are, on what made them."
Ronald Blythe, Autumn 2001

Black Shuck

"As big as a calf, with eyes like burning coals, he pads silently beside the traveller on lonely country roads. Always keeping pace, he never drops back but simply seems to melt away. In some parts of the region, they believe that if you see old Shuck, then you or someone in your family will die. But best not see him."

Martin Newell's epic poem, illustrated by James Dodds, is about the sinister ghostly dog which is said to have haunted East Anglia since Viking times. For hundreds of years Black Shuck, who is associated with death, has stalked the fens, coastlands and churchyards of eastern England. This book is an attempt to follow in the phantom dog's tracks through the half-forgotten villages and lanes of North Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk and to capture some of the dark mystery of this largely unsung part of Great Britain.

Selected Poems

People who don't much like poetry will like these poems, but poetry-lovers should enjoy them too. More important than the placing of them on library shelves would be the keeping of them in your bicycle basket, to read when you're munching your cut-lunch among the cow parsley, or in the pocket of your anorak, to take a look at while your dog is investigating something under a hedgerow. Germaine Greer

This is the first comprehensive selection of Martin Newell's poems. With a foreword by Germaine Greer, the selection was the author's own and represents the very best of twenty years work – much of it originally commissioned for publication in national newspapers such as The Independent, The Independent on Sunday and The Sunday Express. There are a few poems here which were initially aired on BBC TV and radio as well as a sprinkling of stage favourites which it was felt essential to include. Selected Poems is a definitive collection by Newell – a self-styled pop poet who over the past two decades has become genuinely popular.

Wild Man of Wivenhoe

Wivenhoe is an Essex village on the River Colne. "Part suburbia, part bohemia With a dash of academia". But then it's also a verb. It means to stagnate in a pub for hours. Then days. Then years.

"Till one day you wake and find
When your summer's far behind
Life's great lawn remains unmowed
And you have been Wivenhoed".

Wild Man of Wivenhoe is a verse legend, told by the inhabitants of a Wivenhoe pub. The Fisherman, the Artist, the Biker, the Commuter, the Hairdresser, the Farmer, the Shipwright . . . each has a tale to tell about the saucer-eyed, hairy, naked young man dredged out of the river by fishermen. After a series of strange and brief encounters, the Wild Man returns to the river whence he came, only to reappear, many years later, unutterably changed.

The artist James Dodds and the poet Martin Newell live, work and drink in Wivenhoe. Their lovingly-detailed tribute to the spirit of the place is as authentic as the tang of cheese and onion on a beard hair. Witty, elegant and wise, this is a tale for everyone who's ever left a lawn unmowed, or collapsed on one in a moment of mis-spent youth.Jon Canter

Spoke 'n' Word

Essex, much of it, might have been designed for cyclists. That rather maligned county, which Betjeman referred to as "sweet uneventful countryside, mirrored in ponds and seen through gates" has inspired this collection by Martin Newell, who has lived in Essex for much of his life and cycled most of it. The reasons for his passion are clear: "There are some backroads in my area which don't seem to go anywhere but to other lanes...If it's true that England's rural Arcadia is being covered in concrete, then Essex - about seventy percent of which at time of writing is still officially countryside - does not yet seem to have suffered the rapine. The best thing I can say about this county, which has been so good to me, is that I intend to continue living and cycling here, until further notice."

Spoke 'n' Word CD

Spoke 'n' Word took place in spring 2006 and summer 2007 as a partnership project between Insite, The Essex Cultural Tourism Programme and the poet, Martin Newell. It involved gentle bicycle and walking trips punctuated by Newell's poetry readings and anecdotes pertaining to the beautiful countryside around the Colne Valley in north Essex. Many of the participants at the time asked if recordings of the poems might be made available to buy. The result is Spoke 'n' Word, which is is a selection of some of Newell's best pieces, read by the poet against a soothing backdrop of birdsong and water.

also (on the James Dodds' page)

The Song of the Waterlily