Maureen Sutton

Maureen Sutton, who has recently gained the Lincolnshire Poet Laureate Award, 2015.

Maureen Sutton: The Lincolnshire Poet Laureate Award for 2015.

Recently, one of our leading members has gained the Lincolnshire Poet Laureate award. Her winning entry is below. 

Congratulations to Maureen Sutton:

        Shaped by Sound

       The sod beneath my feet has absorbed
       the plough-man’s tread; boots softened
       by creak and bend, one leg always higher.
       His clicking tongue called commands:
      ‘Whoa, turn’, furrows run deep in fenlands.
       The weight of horses’ shoes indented clay.
       Harrow and plough have cut through earth
       sparked limestone.  Ridge and furrow
       have written their own psalms.

       Bird-song: crow, cuckoo, peewit, sky-lark,
       each composed a chorus for sunrise
       ceaselessly calling through changing seasons.
       Invisible winds, breezes, storms, howling gales
       lifted and shifted top-soil, sculptured willow,
       hawthorn, hedges, oak, and ash to a sacred grove
       defining enclosure, boundaries, ‘right of way.’

        Ancient towers and steeples have absorbed 
        the prayers of my ancestors. I hear them in my  
        mind’s ear, clear as village church bells.
        Dykes and ditches diverted water-courses, pushed
        back the sea, reclaimed the land where green 
        mists still rise.  All flow with their own rhythm 
        like migrant geese leaving and returning.
        This is my county. This is Lincolnshire.

Maureen Sutton

March 2015

Pimento Poets: Next Meeting.

English: Allspice or pimento (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We have a meeting on Monday 13th July, 2015 at the Tearooms in Lincoln. Please bring some poetry with you and we will start at 10.30 a.m.

Cheers, Vernon

Pimento Poets : Magna Carta - An Extract…………by Nic Lance.

King John of England signing Magna Carta on June 15, 1215, at Runnymede; coloured wood engraving, 19th century. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

An Extract by Nic Lance……

MAGNA CARTA  - MEGA CHARTER

Bad King John was a dastardly king.  But how do you stop a tyrant?

That is the question.                                    

By Nic Lance
---------------------------------------------------------------------

At first but few, But then they grew
Twenty-five barons under the yew
An oath they swore, an oath they swore
At Ankerwycke, in times of yore

Bold plans they had
To stop King John (he was qu-i-te bad)
In open air
In weather fair

Terms agreed, the scene was set
For a hob nob and a tête à tête
At Runnymede, at Runnymede
In a meadow at Runnymede

Peacemaker, sconemaker(!) go between, diplomat,
Archbishop Langton sat patiently with the king (what a rat)
Immersed in negotiation                                                                          
Speaking for a nation


They parleyed well into the night
Among the bats by candlelight
The Archbishop’s chaplain prayed out loud
Until King John was truly cowed

Normally, bad King John would rather steal
Than do a deal & set his seal
To a big charter
“Call that a charter!”

But that bright day in June
He changed his tune -
Bad King John sealed the charter, drank some wine
kissed his barons  – all was fine

Magna Carta
What a charter!
At Runnymede, at Runnymede
They sowed such seed at Runnymede

Our freedoms to uphold
No one above the law, no law to be sold
No person to be judged, except by their peers
All hunky dory, no more tears



From tyranny to liberty
What brilliant diplomacy!
At Runnymede at Runnymede
They sowed such seed at Runnymede
....
....
                           
© Nic Lance   June 2015     Lincoln
                               
(800 years after the sealing of Magna Carta)
                             
With a grateful nod to Rudyard Kipling.

Postscript to Magana Carta

One of the 4 surviving copies of the 1215 Magna Carta can be seen at Lincoln Castle which has recently had a £22 million revamp, together with the Charter of the Forest (1217) which did much more to relieve the plight of the ‘common’ man and woman living near royal forests.
Revised versions of Magna Carta were subsequently re-issued in 1216, 1217 and 1225 in the reign of Henry III and several times thereafter.
Archbishop Stephen Langton (born in Langton by Wragby, in Lincolnshire) was a key figure in thrashing out the terms of Magna Carta.  He was a negotiator, mediator, peace maker, deal maker but not, as far as I know, a scone maker.  This is just the Bake Off effect!

The yew tree at Ankerwycke is estimated to be 2000 years old and was named as one of Britain’s 50 great trees in 2002 to mark the Queen’s Golden Jubilee.  Although the king and the barons would have sworn an oath before dictating and sealing the terms of Magna Carta, the swearing of an oath under the Ankerwycke Yew is speculation on my part.  However the manor of Ankerwycke, on the bank of the River Thames opposite Runnymede , belonged to Richard de Montfichet  - one of the 25 barons who witnessed the sealing of Magna Carta - so there is a strong connection.