They cling to flat horizonsonly to be bent and wizened by the north wind’s blastthat steams in from the coast. It sculpts them into humps and twiststhat loom from drifting sea mists as giants, witches and hobgoblins,wild animals and dragons. Here and there they come together,huddling against the weather, hedgerows, small woods, copsesand swathes of […]
Tag: Norfolk
This Green and Pleasant Land
So many shades of green, with brown and ochre in between, and flowers sewing up the edges with wild brambles and tidy hedges. I often long for higher hills, a mountain would be better still, but this flat landscape stretches wide, and touches an enormous sky on a horizon laced by wind-sculpted trees that dips […]
Norfolk Names
I’ve fallen in love with Norfolk over more than twenty five years, a place of awkward spellings, names alien to my London ears, where Neatishead and Happisburgh, Mundesley and Wymondham are sounds that rasp and purr when pronounced correctly in the strains of Norfolk burr. Kim M. Russell, 2018 My response to Imaginary Garden with […]
Wherryman
Evening and wherryman rolls sails to the sound of dry reeds on the banks the constant rustling and whistling grey herons and avocets bobbing on the waves otters anoint their territory to the east of this shimmering Norfolk Broad the sun always sets […]
Norfolk Sights and Sounds
windmills and flat landscapes coastal curves and seascapes white sails flash on Broads folded fields and sedgy meadows fruit in orchards and in hedgerows wriggling country roads plopping frogs and gurgling shallows trumpeting geese and warbling swallows rumbling tourist boats Norfolk twang and magpie’s cry commingle as the world slips by diminuendo of minor notes […]
Bishy Barney Bee (Norfolk Dialect)
Image found on Pinterest The first of the year Glinting ruby on the path Ladybird came home © Kim M. Russell, 2016
The Smuggler’s Treasure
Happisburgh is a pretty, ancient coastal village, battered by the North Sea at the top of Norfolk, a place where smugglers were known to land their boats and stash their booty. For more than two hundred years, villagers and visitors to the area reported seeing a glowing figure of a man dressed in the clothes […]
Late Afternoon on a Norfolk Wherry
My response to dVerse Poets Pub Meter-Made Mood–dVerse Meeting the Bar Victoria has challenged us to write a poem that illustrates how meter contributes to the mood of a poem. His face is traced and creased by Norfolk gales, His skin tanned Van Dyke brown as wherry sails, The wherryman sits on the tiller […]
Norfolk’s Treasure
My response to Carpe Diem #957 lake lakes strung like diamonds along silver river chains couched on beds of reeds geese strut by the waterside ducks and boats leave trailing wakes © Kim M. Russell, 2016
Claiming its Toll – a constanza
My response to Jane Dougherty’s Poetry challenge #26: Constanza The sea is an ever present ghost Lapping at the landscape’s edges Pulling at its seams and stitches Gulls survey from groyne and post Low dunes, marrams and wave explosion Sea encroachment and erosion All along the Norfolk coast Towns, hamlets and villages Dwindle […]
writing in north norfolk 