Beyond Castlerigg's Stone Circle ... a Review of 'The Other Side of the Bridge'

Lovely review of ‘The Other Side of the Bridge’ by writer Joyce Wilson in Thursday’s Keswick Reminder (24.1.2013) – thank you Joyce!

The Other Side of The Bridge by Geraldine Green (Poetry)

ISBN:- 978-1-907401-86-2   Paperback  40 poems  £7.99  Available from all good book shops or from www.amazonbooks.com

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Although born in Barrow and now living in Ulverston Dr Geraldine Green comes from a well-known Whitehaven family, (the Coyles) and as a result, many of her poems reflect her strong connections with the town. It's clear that her childhood memories of the tales her grandmother told have proved to be a strong influence on her writing.  She was fascinated by the story of Barney Goose, a true tale, still told in Whitehaven, she recalls …

  ‘I tell the kids how Barney the goose'd

  step along the bar in the pub

  that stood beside these docks,

 tell them how Barney'd sup

 his Guinness.’

Geraldine's family, like so many others went to America for a while and she includes poems inspired by life there.  Travelling across the vast prairie is remembered ...

   'These ghosts of buffalo,

    These man-hunting bison.

    Ghost bison pound the earth

    Their hooves the pestle

    this land their mortar.’

Geraldine casts her net worldwide. A few lines from Skiathos in Greece captures a fleeting, warm, lazy, early morning image ...

        'Morning pulls itself open

              cats slink uphill

         to the churchyard.'

Dr Green's roots lie firmly here in Cumbria as we recognise when she writes ...

        

        

         ‘Beyond this seat my left hip leans against

         beyond the shale-grey flanks of Skiddaw

         this drystone wall, Derwentwater lying below me.

         Beyond Castlerigg's stone circle,

         low clouds rising like steam from a train

         down in St John's-in-the-Vale.

         Beyond the slate-grey track

         miners' ghosts tread at midnight.'

A poet who writes sensitive and innovative patterns of strikingly powerful words on an almost empty page and who engages the reader in a variety of emotional experiences, Geraldine Green is a freelance writing teacher and mentor in addition to her position as sessional tutor at the University of Cumbria.

                                                Joyce Wilson  Jan. 2013

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