An Alfoxden Journal is part of a new chapbook series
We have launched Hazel Catkins - a new series of occasional chapbooks, printed in limited editions of fifty copies in response to specific places and events.
Our first Catkin is An Alfoxden Journal, with four new poems by Katrina Naomi and a prose journal by Sara Hudston. The booklet was inspired by a three-day residency Sara and Katrina held at Alfoxton Park in Somerset, the house and parkland on the Quantocks where Dorothy and William Wordsworth lived for a year during the full-moon of their friendship with Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
Lines from ‘And not forgetting the “exquisite sister” by Katrina Naomi:
What is a woman to do when she’s walking Coleridge home at night, or strolling to the village for eggs and bread, or walking for tea at Nether Stowey? So much to love in Dorothy, in her not marrying, in her keeping up with the men, even as she walked in long skirts and corset, walking faster than William, who needed to rest. Let us admire her, she who gazed at the moon, lying down under the oak, listening and watching, a woman who didn’t complain about dew seeping through her petticoats. Here is a woman who loved nature, hard. I follow in jeans and boots, shrieking on a lone path through the forest as a branch falls, ready to fight an attacker who isn’t there – I still take the path.
From ‘Stag’ by Sara Hudston:
In the late afternoons, red deer came into the park; hinds the size of hill ponies drifting silently through a stand of ash down to a low, hidden combe. The stag arrived on the third day, mature, full-antlered with a thick pelt of fur and mud swathing his shoulders. His scent preceded him, strong and urinous, a blast of smell announcing the rut. And then he bellowed - ‘belling’ they call it, and it is somewhere between a barking roar and the deep tolling of an iron-cast bell.
The residency was kindly hosted by the Buddhist community that now owns Alfoxton, and supported by the Quantock Landscape Partnership. It was part of Somerset Art Weeks 2022 on the theme of sanctuary.
Copies are £8 plus postage and available now only from the Hazel Press website - click here to purchase.
Charleston Festival of the Garden
A quick reminder we will be at the Charleston Festival of the Garden on 13-16 July, where we will be launching Burnt Rain, eco-protestor Roc Sandford’s chronicle of island living. Copies are now available on our website.
Visit us at the Hazel Press Caravan nestled in the Paddock for impromptu poetry readings, a conversation about greener publishing practices, and to enjoy writing relating to spirit of place.
We are part of the informal drop-in fringe events that run alongside the main stage ticketed events. All fringe events are free and there is no need to book to visit us at the caravan.
Hazel author Edmund de Waal, co-author with Norman McBeath of Perdendosi, is also attending the festival and giving a talk about his work. You can book tickets here for Edmund’s event.
The Hazel Caravan will be on the road again at the end of July when we attend the wonderful Primadonna Festival in Stowmarket, Suffolk. Come and visit us there too!
thank you for reading,
Daphne and Sara