SELECTED POEMS

KEITH HOWDEN

ISBN 978--0-244-12950-7
Published November 2018

Keith Howden was born near Burnley in 1932. He is married, with three children. After National Service and work as a laboratory assistant, he taught English and modern European fiction with a major interest in 'the text as event' at Nottingham Trent University. Among his many poetry pamphlets are Joe Anderson, Daft Jack's Ideal Republics, Pauper Grave, Hanging Alice Nutter and Barlow Agonistes. He has published three full-length collections, Marches of Familiar Landscape (Peterloo 1978), Onkonkay (Peterloo (1984) and Jolly Roger (Smokestack 2012). Recently, with his son, the composer Matthew Howden, he has completed two poetry music collaborations, with accompanying discs: The Matter of Britain (PRE Rome 2009) and Barley Top (Redroom 2013).

CONTENTS

From Jolly Roger

The Abbess                             
The Preacher                                                      
The Merchant                                                     
The Knight                                                         
The Drunkard                                                         

From Onkonkay

Cracked Mary's Holiday                                     
Uncle Tom and Auntie Lizzie                            
Eden Street                                                          Ringworm                                                           Frogspawn                                                              

From The Matter of Britain

Runes                                                                 
A Language for Stones                                            

From Pauper Grave

Pauper Grave                                                         

From Lost Orisons

Chapel Perilous                                                 
Chapel Love                                                       
Chapel Postcard                                                     

From Not Bloody Gawain

Not Bloody Gawain                                           
A Lexicon for the Fisher King                            
A Grail's Circumference                                     
Mordred's Wardrobe                                          
An Avalon Analogue                                             

From Barlow Agonistes

Barlow's back-row Bulletins

The Globe                                                          
The Palace                                                          
The Roxy                                                          
The Court                                                           
A Modern Salome                                              
Phyllis Dixey in Burnley                                          
Lowry to Bosch                                                  
Blake at the W.I.                                                 Angel                                                                 
A Swastika Lullaby                             

From Landscapes with Handless Man

Gull                                                                    
Pit Accident                                                        
Landscape with Handless Man                           
Denison Dead                                                         

From A Garden of Earthly Delights

A Garden of Earthly Delights                             
Elegy written in a Country Churchyard              
A Question of Upbringing                                 
The Merchant of Venice                                    
Paradise Lost                                                      
Roads :Whitsun                                                  

From Barley Top

At Barley Top                                                    
Moor Farms                                                        
Barley Top                                                         
Leeds-Liverpool Canal                                       
Neighbours                                                         
Dynamo                                                             
First Electric Street Lighting                                
A Saltways Catechism                                        
For the Rector of Stiffkey                                  
To His Bishop, suggesting a truer Eucharist        
Letters from Blackpool                                      
A Lion in Skegness                                            
Jairmany Calling                                                

Published in The Crazy Oik Magazine

She walks from Calder Moor                             
About suffering                                                  
Long Causeway                                                  
Chocolate Box                                                          

 From Jolly Roger

Memento Mori                                                     
Dead Seas                                                             
Tardis                                                                  
Actuary                                                                
Semtex                                                                 

LULU

AMAZON