My favourite poetic form is the dVerse Quadrille, with its challenge of a limited number of words, freedom of layout and choice of whether to rhyme or not. However, I tend to gravitate towards the sonnet, with its history, famous sonneteers and advocates, as well as its rules, which were made to be broken – […]
Tag: North Norfolk
At Cley…
a sigh of seeding grasses purple-mists the marshes where sea touches shingle with a salty, osculating tingle. Flagrantly expansive August sky – empty of birds but clouds sail by – breathes sun-warmed rusty seaweed, samphire and yellow agrimony, and then blows harder in an attempt to float a sea-loving, pebble-beached boat. Kim M. Russell, 2017
First Glimpse
We were new to the North Norfolk coast and couldn’t agree what we loved the most: the flatness of the landscape, the drama of the clouds, the wind so loud, the skies so wide and flaming with gorgeous sunsets and expansive star-filled nights. In the charcoal-shadowed garden, listening to the sea beyond the dunes, I […]
North Norfolk Mammoth (reprise)
Amongst mounds of stones and sand at the foot Of crumbling cliffs, where Norfolk juts its chin, Stubborn and defiant as King Canute Watching the waves roll out and crash back in On flat landscape from Yarmouth to King’s Lynn, A rich treasury of ancient fossils, Cached by glaciers in the primeval Landscape almost a […]
Overcast on the Norfolk Coast
Ominous under a rain-speckled sky, Lilac-coloured flowers of salsify Bloom among the grasses In moody bird-haunted marshes, Where oystercatchers pipe on the tideline. In the morning drizzle, on a ghostly coast, Wind jangles masts and rigging on boats, Whistles in sea-bleached branches and reeds, And chattering sedge warblers root in the weeds. On a beach […]
Darkness and Light – a san san
I saw Jane Dougherty’s NaPoWriMo post, checked out Christine Cochrane’s blog and played around with (for me) the new poetic form of the san san. In the immensity of North Norfolk nights, Jupiter sits low in the sky after sunset, Its moons set like diamonds on either side. Along the coast, a festoon of twinkling […]
Doggerland
Larger in area than the British Isles, Doggerland’s submerged landscape Formed a bridge for miles From the English coast to Europe. In the nineteen thirties A block of peat was dredged By a Cromer fishing trawler From the seabed. Inside the blackened sod A delicate harpoon head Carved from red deer antler, Polished, scored and […]
North Norfolk Mammoth
My response to Jane Dougherty’s Poetry challenge #24: Cleave poem and dVerse Poets Pub Open Link Night #169 At the feet of crumbling cliffs / Norfolk juts its chin at the North Sea Below sand and gravel / stubborn and defiant as Canute Deposited by glaciers / in the flattened landscape Over a million years ago […]
Sea Birds
Along the shingly shore And further up the creek Swoop black-backed gulls Spearing silver fish in lethal beaks On the apron of marshland Redshanks pipe nervously Long skeins of geese Lace the cloudy sky And wigeon wing hurriedly In twos and threes Heading Farther out To sea © Kim M. Russell, 2016 Image of Spotted Redshank […]
Disappearing Coast
toppling to the beach stroke of sandy crumbling dunes ragged with marram kisses the concrete sea wall and slides into churning waves Kim M. Russell, 2015
writing in north norfolk 