Tees Valley Writers

Maureen Almond

Maureen Almond is a poet, academic and writing teacher living in Yarm. She was born in Ferryhill, County Durham in 1945 and moved to Teesside at the age of two. Her childhood days were spent ‘below the railway’ in Thornaby, in the shadow of Head Wrightson’s Iron Foundry, (which acts as the backdrop for her poetry collection, The Works. She now lives in Yarm.

Maureen is a working writer experienced at teaching both children and adults. She won a New Writing North, ‘Time to Write Award’ in 2003.

She has a strong interest in classical literature and is currently a research student at the University of Newcastle concentrating on the Roman poet, Horace. Her work is included in the Primary Texts Reading List for the Oxford University Course, ‘The Reception of Classical Literature in Twentieth-Century Poetry in English’ and has been cited in The Cambridge Companion to Horace (2007). She recently recorded a programme about Horace for BBC Radio 3 as part of a series dealing with his poetry. She is also a contributor in the forthcoming OUP Living Classics: Greece and Rome in Contemporary Poetry in English.

You can visit Maureen's website at www.maureenalmond.com

PUBLICATIONS

Since she began writing poetry in 1992, Maureen has had six poetry collections published:

Hot (1997, Mudfog)
Tailor Tacks (1999, Mudfog)
Oyster Baby (2002, Biscuit)
The Works (2004, Biscuit)
Tongues in Trees (2005, New Writing North)
Recollections (2008, Flambard).

From Recollections, Flambard, 2008

Gofannon

You’re far too narrow-shouldered for me.
Those puny arms could not have polished ore
into shining shields. Surely you couldn’t be
the Divine-Smith in charge of furnaces, or
responsible for the blades and spears of war.

You’re in the right place, though, up here;
we have a tendency to play with fire.
And like you, we’re stronger than we appear.
Believe me, even the scrawny ones have wire
in their blood. It takes a lot to tire

us out or wear us down; not losing ships
or closing pits. Such hardship merely hones
our wits, and looking at your tight lips
there’s the same steeliness. No sticks or stones
can hurt us. Iron runs through our bones.

© Maureen Almond

Photo (right) © Glyn Goodrick