Jarrow march

Jarrow March

Pickard, Tom

Schocken Books

History

Europe

Distributed in the USA by Schocken Books

Poetry. Tom Pickard's poems are by turns erotic and political, pastoral and urban. They make use of everyday speech with formal inventiveness and sophistication. He is the author of six individual volumes of poetry, including FUCKWIND, available at SPD. "Song sings itself in these poems. Their heart is clarity, spoken. Why shouldn't the music lead and the heart follow-and mind be the wonder of their witness? This is a great poetry made of such common life, each word a step along the way"-Robert Creeley.

Hole in the Wall: New & Selected Poems

Literature & Fiction

Poetry

Flood Editions

Poetry. In part a chronicle of misfortune and heartbreak, THE DARK MONTHS OF MAY tells of life on the run. With his characteristic bawdiness and sonic aplomb, Pickard seeks refuge in the geography of British border ballads, accompanied by eighteenth-century horse thieves and "desperate reprobates." There, he finds only cold consolation: "leave me now and let me sleep / your thieving words are all I'll keep." "[THE DARK MONTHS OF MAY] reminds me of an old romantic recording, static and dry and incorruptibly noted"-- Fanny Howe.

The Dark Months of May (Flood Editions)

Poetry. THE BALLAD OF JAMIE ALLAN recounts the true adventures of an eighteenth-century gypsy musician who lived on the English-Scottish Borders and died in Durham jail, serving a life sentence for stealing a horse. Though once patronized by dukes and earls, Allan lost their support as his wayward behavior began to exceed their own. Drawing on newspaper accounts and court depositions, Pickard brings the ballad tradition of stark reportage to life with his own genius for the form. Through the words of his cohorts and contemporaries, Allan emerges as a spirit of the Borders, that wild and historically lawless region where rivers and fells set the stage for his captures and escapes.

Ballad of Jamie Allan

Literary Nonfiction. Memoir. MORE PRICKS THAN PRIZES is a memoir that takes Pickard from Newcastle in 1968 to London's Old Bailey in 1976, with side trips to Poland. The poet Basil Bunting makes an appearance. As does Paul McCartney. This is a true crime story with a happy ending. "I am an old admirer of Tom Pickard's poetry and believe as does Basil Bunting that he is one of the most live and true poetic voices in Great Britain"—Allen Ginsberg.

More Pricks Than Prizes

Biographies & Memoirs

Pressed Wafer

Poetry. In FIENDS FELL, Tom Pickard charts a single year out of a decade spent on a bare hilltop near the English-Scottish border, with the roaring wind as his only guide. In journal entries interspersed with lyrics and poems, as in Japanese haibun, he records his daily life on the fells: landmarks of border balladry, weather and wildlife, bankruptcy and lust, the struggle "between appetite and attainment" (in Basil Bunting's words). The result is, among other things, a record of making, its trials and loneliness, its flashes of humor and sudden grace. It culminates in "Lark &amp; Merlin," one of Pickard's finest sequences. As Ange Mlinko has commented in Poetry magazine, Pickard is "a lyric poet in profound correspondence with his home in the North Pennines and with the erotic muse . . ."

Fiends Fell

A bird’s journey over the fells and a coastal meditation on winter.

Winter Migrants

Carcanet Press Ltd.

For Tom Pickard poetry is a free, and freeing, space. His pen 'demands / complete autonomy', and finds it as it explores both harsh and lyrical realities with a northern working-class sensibility. A lifelong counter-cultural figure, Pickard transcends formal and thematic barriers with a lightness of touch that is informed both by anger and by love.

Hoyoot: Collected Poems and Songs

Poetry. I want to be swept in fuck/ wrapped in fuck/ swallowed in fuck/ free in fuck/ fast in fuck/ fixed in fuck/ loved in fuck (hidden agenda). This collection of poems and songs soars over the fells, screeching truth, sex, humour, anger and love. With sharp vision Tom dissects his gut reaction and reminds us to appreciate the cool clear beauty of our situation - Paul McCartney.

Fuckwind

Etruscan Books

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Books by Pickard, Tom