Seamus Heaney
He started it all for me. As a young man, Clearances floored me. North changed me. Haw Lantern broke me, Tollund Man and Wintering Out just blew me away.
Dart by Alice Oswald
It was the first work of hers that I’d read and remains my favourite. She brings all the voices along the river to life in such a visceral and beautiful way and through them you can hear the river sing it’s song.
Moortown Diary by Ted Hughes
Utterly raw and powerful, written, quite literally, in the moment. I don’t know of another work like it.
The Half God of Rainfall by Inua Ellams
Just finished this again, beautifully lyrical and full of humour but deals with power and vulnerability and so much more so well.
And The Rest is Rust and Stardust by Penny Tigerlily Lane
A new book from a local writer to me full of love and heartbreak and anger and all those things, but brought together in beautifully wrought tender work.
Simon Medhurst is a Ramsgate poet and performer, part of the rising tide of Thanet poetry.