William Martin (1925-2010) was a poet of extraordinary vision and musicality. Thoroughly grounded in his native North-East England, its pit communities and industry, his song-like poems nevertheless traverse a vast geographical and historical landscape ranging from deep Celtic and Anglo-Saxon sources to the mythology and sacred sites of India, via a passionate political engagement that never limits song to mere rhetoric. He also drew on children’s games, ballads and street songs in poems showing both political anger and a wider concern for a society losing its common ground, its rituals and rites of passage.
Marratide: Selected Poems brings together poems from William Martin’s four collections Cracknrigg (1983) and Hinny Beata (1987) from Taxus Press; and Marra Familia (1993) and Lammas Alanna (2000), from Bloodaxe Books. Two comprehensive introductory essays by editors Peter Armstrong and Jake Morris-Campbell discuss the life and poetry of William Martin in this edition published to celebrate his centenary.
A QR code printed in the book links to archive audio recordings of poems read (and sung) by William Martin.
Arvustused
William Martin is a remembrancer, patiently polishing the common coins of street games, folk songs and customs, and putting them back into circulation David Jones comes to mind, but not as an immediate ancestor. Martin seems closer to George Mackay Brown, firmly rooted in a specific community and able to give the elements of its common life a sacramental value. But perhaps he is closest of all to the Vasko Popa of Earth Erect, eschewing private poetry to restore the collective symbols, releaf the ikons with gold. -- Roger Garfitt * London Magazine * Martins poetic world is a multi-layered place. Ancient pilgrim paths are overlaid with colliery wagonways; ritual can mean the incantation of childhood games or the grand procession of banners. [ ] Martins vision may be firmly rooted in home soil, but it ranges widely through time and space. -- Andy Potts * North East Bylines, on Marratide: Selected Poems * A linguistic adventure to be undertaken, surreal in character, but serene in tone, composed of fragments firmly controlled to make a mosaic of meaning from the range of sources. -- Fenella Copplestone * PN Review, on Marra Familia * Excitement consequent upon a distinctive voice and vision Martins forms appear to be as simply complex as a recovered childhood he has not abandoned utter song. -- Chris McCully * PN Review, on Cracknrigg *
9 Peter Armstrong: William Martin: Gravity Lines
19 Jake Morris-Campbell: William Martin: Slipstreams
27 A note on the choice of poems
28 Acknowledgements
from CRACKNRIGG (1983)
30 When May Be Out
30 from Hen Meneu * The Old Bush
34 Crist Gwyn * The White Christ
37 The Even Ships
39 The Round Dance
41 The Bald Ship
44 from A19 Hymn
47 from Kildan Fragments
50 Marratide
from HINNY BEATA (1987)
54 from Malkuth
65 Wiramutha Helix
87 from Mothergate
89 from Anna Marra Missa
89 Moreneta
91 Song of the Cotia Lass
94 Song: Well rise in the morning
from MARRA FAMILIA (1993)
97 from Image Ark
106 Song: Will dayligone fash
108 from Anna Navis
120 from Triptych
121 Slogan Bread
from LAMMAS ALANNA (2000)
124 Aforeword
128 Mort Tiamat
130 Psalm
131 Quest
134 from I Johnbird
137 Maytime
139 Scordie
143 Exile
144 The Seafarer
148 Bedes Going
149 Six Island Sunset
153 Midwinter Song
157 from In Easthope
160 from Images from Samuel Palmer
163 Bairnseed
166 from Song: We meet at the lamp
168 Song: As aa was gannin through Chester-le-Street
170 from His Bright Silver
174 Song: A Wearside version Its O but aa ken well
176 from Durham Beatitude
179 Notes
William Martin (1925-2010) was born in New Silksworth, Co. Durham. During the Second World War, he was a radio technician in the RAF, based near Karachi, where he was inspired by the Eastern religious and philosophical traditions. After being demobbed he became a gas fitter and later served in the Audiology Department of Sunderland Royal Infirmary, retiring as Head of Department. He lived in Sunderland for over half a century, settling there during the 1950s. He was an active member of CND for many years, taking part in the ritual boarding of nuclear submarines in Holy Loch, Scotland in 1961. He became an artist and had work purchased and exhibited by Sunderland Art Gallery. However, oil paints and a young family were not an easy combination, and poetry became his medium from the mid 1960s onwards. For some years he wrote without any recognition, but in 1971 he had a book of poetry published to commemorate the Wearmouth 1300 Festival (Tidings of our Bairnsea). This was later followed by Cracknrigg (1983) and Hinny Beata (1987) with Taxus, and Marra Familia (1993) and Lammas Alanna (2000) with Bloodaxe. His retrospective, Marratide: Selected Poems, edited by Peter Armstrong and Jake Morris-Campbell, is published by Bloodaxe in 2025.
