Walking the North - Grasmere
Poems and Thoughts from the Anxious Poet
I just wanted to post this substack to give a heads up to you all that Matt Carr, my good friend and I, have embarked upon series three of our Grim Up North? Podcast.
We have now set the tradition (well we’ve done it once!) that we begin with a walking episode, a full on outside broadcast. So after a false start where I had a stomach bug and Matt had shingles - we finally set off last Thursday for Grasmere. The delay allowed us to capitalise on two of the sunniest days so far this year.
We pulled up outside Dove Cottage, where the Wordsworth’s lived in the early 1800s. We took the tour and then went around the museum.
Then we set off round Grasmere, recording as we walked, meeting folk along the way as well as being strafed by RAF jet fighters. You will hear our journey here. I hope it is well worth a listen.
The whole day was a joy and we ended in the Traveller’s Rest pub for a very nice meal and a pint. The next morning we awoke to crisp frost and mist over the lake.
After a lovely breakfast we finished off our podcast up in Easdale. Standing looking up towards the Tarn and Sour Milk Gill.
These podcasts are an exploration of all aspects of the North of England. We call it a podcast about the North from the North. If you like this one, then there are two other series to listen to from Singing the North to Cooking the North, How did it get so Grim? to Seeing the North all about art. Believe me, we don’t think it really is grim and neither do our guests. We have spoken to George Orwell’s son Richard Blair, the writer of Our Friends in the North, crime writers, actors, directors and even food critics.
This is Matt’s biography from the Royal Literary Fund
Matt Carr is a writer and journalist. His nonfiction books include the widely acclaimed memoir of his Caribbean childhood, My Father’s House (Hamish Hamilton 1997); The Infernal Machine: A History of Terrorism (New Press 2007); Blood and Faith: The Purging of Muslim Spain 1492–1614 (Hurst/New Press 2009); Fortress Europe: Inside the War Against Immigration (Hurst/New Press 2012), and Savage Frontier: The Pyrenees in History (Hurst/New Press 2018).
His first novel The Devils of Cardona (Penguin Random House 2017) was a New York Times Editors’ Choice. His journalism has been published in The Guardian, the New Statesman, The Observer, the New York Times International and Literary Hub. He has spoken at numerous literary festivals, and taught creative writing to adults and teenagers.
A lifelong Hispanophile, Matt writes fiction and nonfiction often focused on themes from Spanish and Latin American culture, history, and politics. He is the founder of the 1 Day Without Us campaign in solidarity with migrants, and a co-host of the podcast Grim Up North: A Podcast About the North, from the North.
He is currently working on a book about Charles Darwin, racial science, and the conquest of Patagonia.
Matt lives in Sheffield with his wife and two cats. When not writing and reading, he spends his time playing tennis, walking in the Peak District, and haunting coffee shops.
He has his own substack
We have a a great time doing these podcasts and I hope you will enjoy this one Walking the North in Grasmere and hearing how the Lakeland poetic movement including William, Dorothy and Samuel Taylor Coleridge along with others like John Ruskin have changed our view of the wild and our own inner world.
Here are a couple of quotes from my own poems about this enthralling area.
From
Easdale Tarn
The bridge over the final beck
smoothed its slaten flags towards
the little red postbox, and I composed
all my letterly regrets to be sent
to those I bruise, and a long missive
of frustration to one whose help didn’t.
But that one was really a letter to myself.
I felt the path wondering under my feet
if its directness had been too brutal,
but the gate to the road opened and
welcomed all the scuffs my boots wear.
I came back from High Easdale Tarn,
and my teacup was white like a new page.
Published in A Night Sea Journey
From
‘Bond Unknown To Me Was Given’
As I have come back with questing feet and mind,
Grasmere’s warm embrace has furnished me with
a bond that had been unknown, until I trod
the high path to Easdale Tarn’s still surface,
and entered the waters of nature’s womb.
These Lakeland spirits have imparted two truths:
that profit should never be put above
the wealth in every life’s nobility,
and the soul is always recalibrated
by entering this place where all is beauty
and deserves the sight of fell born grandeur.
Soon to be published in Where Do Dreams Come From