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Back Gold from the Stone Save as PDF
Chapters (148)
  1. Cover
  2. Title page
  3. Dedication
  4. Introduction
  5. From Perceptions of the Pen (1985)
  6. Well ‘I’
  7. Mother
  8. Ain’t No
  9. Scream
  10. So Near and yet So Near
  11. As Is Life
  12. From Tender Fingers in a Clenched Fist (1988)
  13. African Metaphor
  14. Listening
  15. Nursery Rhyme
  16. Some Quotes from Neatherton Man found in Deepest England Somewhere between 1974 and 1980
  17. Negotiations
  18. Englabetween
  19. What Have We Got
  20. Moods of Rain
  21. Wasita
  22. Sing a Song of Sick Penance
  23. The Black Writers’ Workshop
  24. Understanding Difference
  25. The Day Will Come
  26. The Invasion of the Mancunoids
  27. The Red Death of Edgar Allan Poe
  28. Trying Me
  29. Dead Wood Poetry
  30. Fell Off and Fell Out
  31. Bad Trip – L.S.D.
  32. Burn My Book (Burn In Illusion)
  33. Tense Tattered Tortured Tried Tested and Torn
  34. Mother Thatcher
  35. Today Will Pass
  36. Spell Bound
  37. Gold from the Stone
  38. Everything Is Rhythmical
  39. Sleep Is a Songbird
  40. Director’s Notes (For the Daily Shun and Daily Killer)
  41. She Read as She Cradled
  42. City Sigh
  43. Spell Me Freedom
  44. Interim and Cost
  45. Ace Under My Sleeve
  46. Traces
  47. The Show Goes On
  48. From Rebel without Applause (1992)
  49. Bearing Witness
  50. Remember How We Forgot
  51. Fingerprints
  52. Occupations
  53. Boiling Up
  54. Instant Consciousness
  55. Airmail to a Dictionary
  56. The Customs Men
  57. Mind-Walking
  58. For My Headstone
  59. Love Poem
  60. Flowers in the Kitchen
  61. Suitcases and Muddy Parks
  62. The Nest
  63. Pass It On
  64. Going Places
  65. Gil Scott-Heron
  66. Godsell
  67. Flushed
  68. I Hate You
  69. Professional Black
  70. Pretoria Pit
  71. Uncle Tom and the 1990s
  72. Clear as Day Storms
  73. My Brother
  74. Children and Company
  75. Writer’s Blockocks
  76. The Black Moon
  77. Brinkley Park
  78. Rage
  79. From Morning Breaks in the Elevator (1999)
  80. The Waitress and the Nights of the Round Table
  81. Colour Blind
  82. Charlie’s Playing Blackjack
  83. Invisible Kisses
  84. Slipping
  85. Murdering Bill
  86. Immigration R.S.V.P.
  87. Fair
  88. The Repossession: Lot 67
  89. Baptism in Mire
  90. Controlled Explosions
  91. Children’s Home
  92. Walking in Circles
  93. My Dad Is a Pilot
  94. Guilt
  95. Sandwich Love
  96. The Elevator
  97. A Flock of Sound
  98. The Graduate and Her Secret Thesis
  99. The Bruise
  100. Quiet Places
  101. Mourning Breaks
  102. From Listener (2008)
  103. Let There Be Peace
  104. Rain
  105. The Actor’s Voice
  106. Patterns
  107. Laying the Table
  108. Perfect
  109. Gambian Holiday Maker
  110. Listener
  111. Ricochet
  112. Email
  113. Elephant in the Room
  114. Architecture
  115. Moving Mountains
  116. Manchester Piccadilly
  117. Some Things I Like
  118. The Lost Key
  119. **** This
  120. Magpie
  121. Before We Get Into This
  122. Advice for the Living
  123. The Battle of Adwa, 1896
  124. The Gilt of Cain
  125. Applecart Art
  126. I Will Not Speak Ill of the Dead
  127. Transistor
  128. This Train (Sing Along)
  129. Spring: Mayday Mayday
  130. Barley Field
  131. The Boxer
  132. Torch
  133. New Poems
  134. What If
  135. Whale Translation
  136. The Spark Catchers
  137. Shipping Good
  138. Open Up
  139. Night Mails
  140. Lock and Quay
  141. Listening Post
  142. Fallen
  143. Belong
  144. Rest
  145. Adventure Flight
  146. Endnotes
  147. Index of Titles
  148. Index of First Lines

When against all odds carry on, shout, ‘Carry on.’

Make wings of your arms with the heart. At its centre

The challenge, the flight, the adventure.

Endnotes

Endnotes

‘Whale Translation’

In 2013 a giant sperm whale was found on the beach in Greenwich and became national news. This super-real art installation is the work of the Belgian arts collective Captain Boomer, created in collaboration with Zephyr Wildlife Reconstruction. I was artist in residence at the Greenwich and Docklands International Festival.

‘The Spark Catchers’

‘The Spark Catchers’ is the first poem commissioned for the 2012 London Olympics. The poem remains in the Olympic Park as a Landmark poem and will do so for the next hundred years.

‘Shipping Good’

‘Shipping Good’ was commissioned in 2012 by the Cathedral Group. It is a Landmark Poem and can be found in the new developments outside Greenwich Station.

‘Open Up’ and ‘Belong’

‘Open Up’ and ‘Belong’ are commissions by Manchester Literature Festival as a response to the fiftieth anniversary of Martin Luther King’s era-defining ‘I have a dream’ speech for a celebratory programme co-produced with Manchester Camerata. It was performed at Manchester Town Hall on Saturday, 19 October 2013, interspersed between movements of Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 13 in B flat, OP. 130, played by Camerata’s principal players.

‘Night Mails’

In the café in the Midland Hotel in Manchester framed upon the walls are selected verses of W.H. Auden’s poem ‘Night Mail’, which was the famous centrepiece of the eponymous film. Auden’s poem is the source, inspiration and character of ‘Night Mails’, a poem performed at a recent Association of Directors of Children’s Services conference.

‘Lock and Quay’

This Landmark Poem was embedded in the Surrey Quays development in 2016.

‘Listening Post’

‘Listening Post’ was commissioned and read in Manchester on the anniversary of the Battle of the Somme in June 2016.

‘Fallen’

‘Fallen’ was commissioned in 2016 by Coram and the Foundling Museum for the exhibition Fallen Women.

‘Rest’

On 1 May 2009 Carol Ann Duffy became poet laureate. To mark the occasion BBC Newsnight asked a range of poets to give the new laureate some advice in verse form.

‘Adventure Flight’

‘Adventure Flight’ was written for the FA Cup final in 2015. It was played online, on television and at Wembley on the day before the players came out onto the pitch.

Index of Titles

Index of Titles

**** This ref1

Ace Under My Sleeve ref1

Adventure Flight ref1

Advice for the Living ref1

Ain’t No ref1

Airmail to a Dictionary ref1

African Metaphor ref1

A Flock of Sound ref1

Applecart Art ref1

Architecture ref1

As Is Life ref1

Bad Trip – L.S.D. ref1

Baptism in Mire ref1

Barley Field ref1

Bearing Witness ref1

Before We Get Into This ref1

Belong ref1

Boiling Up ref1

Brinkley Park ref1

Burn My Book (Burn in Illusion) ref1

Charlie’s Playing Blackjack ref1

Children and Company ref1

Children’s Home ref1

City Sigh ref1

Clear as Day Storms ref1

Colour Blind ref1

Controlled Explosions ref1

Dead Wood Poetry ref1