Strands explores the seascape, fishermen and landscape of Cornwall and music. It starts with a poem about a war-time orphan arriving in Penzance, and ends with musicians stumbling into a sunrise.
I was a volunteer at the International Musicians Seminar at Prussia Cove, a musical outpost on the Cornish Atlantic coast. This is reflected in poems that explore the relationships between man, the sea and music. Some poems focus on the experience of listening to music—‘Isserlis’, for example, is about the impact of cellist Steven Isserlis on his audiences.
‘Strands’ is the centre-piece of the collection, a sequence of six poems with echoes of the sea and the past.
