Cardinal Cox was appointed Poet Laureate of Peterborough in 2003. The Friends of Broadway Cemetery in the city has released a pamphlet of poems by the Cardinal to tie-in with a brief exhibition at the city council chambers. I can report with some satisfaction that the Cardinal's collection, Memento Mori, is very good; the poems are allusive, witty, well-crafted and set all sort of images ricocheting inside the sensitive noggin. As my thoughts were very much on Remembrance lately I was drawn to a poem about a ceremony in a city park:
'They gather in the sunken garden
Flags hanging still to the staff
With silence in the service
A silence for all that died'
Other poems deal with burial customs from prehistory, the distinguished visitors who passed through Peterborough at various speeds, and the general themes of loss and memory. Not exactly ghost stories, these poems, but they are haunted by spirits of the past and certainly haunt the reader.
You can obtain a copy of Memento Mori from the Friends - send them a cheque for one pound fifty, and a C5 SAE. Their address is:
53 Huntley Grove
Peterborough PE1 2QW
1 comment:
Thanks for this. I would never have known a thing about it otherwise, and it sounds very interesting.
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