BOOK REVIEW: Beyond the Fell Wall by Richard Skelton
BOOK REVIEW: Beyond the Fell Wall by Richard Skelton, £12
ALLAN TUNNINGLEY / / News
RICHARD Skelton's mix of poetry and prose is described as 'a distillation' of his thoughts and observations about the fells above Furness, where he lives.
At the book's heart is a dry stone wall which Skelton sees as much more than a boundary to define land ownership and stop sheep from straying.
The wall, he says, is also 'a vessel for the human imagination (and) bristles with life, voices and myths'.
Three pieces in particular visually express this wall connection by winding their way across the page, very much as a dry stone wall would twist and turn along the landscape.
It is difficult to call them poems because they are in effect winding lists of Cumbrian place names; although to be fair names such as Full Belly Dale, Featherbed, Bellandy Bit and Thunder Field are evocative in their own way.
Published by Little Toller - www.littletoller.co.uk
ALLAN TUNNINGLEY
