Full Description
'Ginnel' is the Northern dialect word for a passage between houses, and this closely unified sequence of poems is set in and around the ginnels of Leeds, where Lucy Newlyn grew up in the 1960s. Exploring the hinterlands of middle-class Headingley and working-class Meanwood, the sequence is pervaded by a sense of restlessness, of wandering between two worlds and times. Poems are constantly on the move, revisiting the places of childhood and childhood as a place. With acute particularity, they recall familiar sights and sounds, local people, favourite walks, dialect words learnt when playing out in the back streets. Just as ginnels intimately criss-cross the geographical terrain of Leeds, so they track the deepening of consciousness. This is poetry of firm local attachment, overlaid by a child's developing awareness of class divisions, separation, mortality and loss. The adult looks back, with a sense of exile.
Contents
Ginnel Home Two addresses Light Washing day Rag and bone man The attic Wood Lane Toad Omnibus August, and the hollyhocks Snicket The Misses Hallewell Last to read Transposed Saturday afternoon on the Ridge Trading conkers Brambling Landscape near Otley Walls Ginneling Juan taught me Playin' Out Meanwood ginnel Pig-pen at Meanwood Mill Pond dump Bandstand Thornton's Arcade Bryan's Fish Shop Mr Bradshaw Prosaic Comfortable box Across the street Truant Map Absences Eleven-plus Penny for the guy Alibi, 22 November 1963 Alma Road Cleo's songs Town Hall lions Baking Grove Lane in September Homesickness At the back Hide and Seek The bend Riddle Crossing the Ridge Notes
