Ruth Bidgood
Local Historian
Facts were his stock-in-trade,
and his addiction.
Good to tell name and farm
of the tooth-drawer who pulled
a stubborn molar; better
to add his date of birth,
even the hour and weather
of his first cry. Mapping
his neighbourhood’s past,
he couldn’t resist the puniest
hillock, quirkiest twist
of a brambly footpath.
When he ordered the carving
of his graduate son’s memorial -
the young consumptive
so loved, focus of so much pride -
the austerity of grief
constrained him, enforced
a minimal record - ‘died at sea,
aged thirty-two’.
For once his readers were left
wanting more. There was just one
concession - ‘buried
in latitude 44.25 North,
longitude 42.10 West’ -
to chart the deepest gulf
in an ocean of tears.
Page(s) 5
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The