Haven't met her yet, but am researching and exchanging e-mails with British poet Josephine Dickinson who will be reading at Bookshop Santa Cruz, 7:30 PM, Tues., Oct. 12, 2010. I'll be doing the Intro and, long distance, getting to know her...
Scarberry Hill
ISBN 09527444-3-0
£7.95
Josephine Dickinson [in her own words]
I grew up in South London but am rooted now in this place Alston, beloved of Auden, who ever kept its map on his wall. I aspire to the qualities of the shepherdpoet, indeed it is my e-mail address. My sense of vocation as a poet emerged after I became profoundly deaf overnight at the age of six and I started reading and imitating poetry. I lost a physical sense but started seeing and hearing the miraculous. I read Classics at Oxford, then became a music teacher and composer after study with Michael Finnissy and Richard Barrett. Life events brought me to Alston. One day Michael Mackmin wrote and asked me if I had enough poems to make a book. I sent him 100 poems. He chose 60. And this is 'Scarberry Hill'. Not all my poems are about sheep. Current interests include mythology and fairy tales, space travel and cosmology. I was stunned by last year's transit of the Sun by Venus and very much look forward to 2012.
