We're delighted to welcome you to the online launch for John Greening's latest collection, From the East, hosted by fellow Renard poet Ruth Irwin. Join us for a stimulating evening of discussion and readings!
From the East
Sixty Huntingdonshire Codices
In over twenty poetry collections since 1982, John Greening has explored subjects as varied as Egypt, Captain Scott, WWI, classical music, Ben Jonson and Heathrow airport, but he has kept returning to the landscape of a quintessentially English (and technically non-existent) county. His well-received Huntingdonshire Eclogues of the late 1980s were followed a decade later by Huntingdonshire Nocturnes and, another ten more years after that, the Huntingdonshire Elegies.
On a cold Boxing Day walk in 2017, while the ferocious storm, the ‘Beast from the East’ prowled the land, his Huntingdonshire Codices began to come together, and what had been a trilogy turned into a quartet.
Formed of sixty fifteen-line stanzas, this haunting and consistently entertaining collection can be read like a journal, tracking lines of thought through time and space, painting detailed, witty and moving pictures of a countryside and life that lie unchanged, even through periods of great upheaval – political, ecological and cultural.
About John
John Greening is recipient of several major prizes and a Cholmondeley Award. Beyond the many collections represented in The Interpretation of Owls: Selected Poems 1977–2022 (ed. Gardner), he has produced anthologies and editions of major poets. Having lived in Egypt, Scotland and New Jersey, he and his family have settled in East Anglia.
About Ruth
Ruth Irwin is a writer, teacher and poet from the south-east of England. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Goldsmith’s, University of London. Following a diagnosis of ADHD, much of Ruth’s poetry explores and foregrounds the condition and aims to raise awareness. Ruth grew up in Hertfordshire, where she has recently returned after a decade living in London. People: Unfinished Poems (Renard Press, 2023) is her first collection.