Tag Archives: literature

William’s Footprint

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William’s Footprint is a poem about William Dean, who arrived at Croome in about 1796 and was Head Gardener to the 6th and 7th Earls of Coventry for nearly 40 years looking after the walled kitchen garden and the park. He wrote a book, an historical account of Croome that includes a plant and tree index gloriously referred to as ‘Hortus Croomensis’; a magnificent index of every plant and tree. This poem was written as part of the Soul-to-Sole project and is shown on the sole of William’s shoe in the shoe rack in the basement.

William’s Footprint

If soles could talk
what tales they’d tell
of statues—alive!—
hot walls and wishing wells;
of a serpentine river
and a man-made lake,
of Quercus ilex
and poison Mandrake.

If soles could talk
what tales they’d tell,
of the walled kitchen garden
and glass cloche bells,
of boys of seven
who stoke the heated wall,
while the dipping pond
is their longed for call.

If soles could talk
what tales they’d tell,
of the Druid and Sabrina’s
trysts in the dell;
of mischievous Pan
piping high and sweet,
the goat-god spies on them
in the grotto where they meet.

If soles could talk
what tales they’d tell,
of the nymphs at Croome
and wooded islands where they dwell.
Here’s head gardener Will
wielding spade and pruning hook;
he is grounded and ready
to write his book.

Polly Stretton © 2014

Nuns Talking

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The final poem of the day following the Young Poets’ poetry slam in July 2015 at The Summer Reading Challenge at Croome. A bit of fun to end our celebrations, with me as ‘nasty nun’ and Matt Windle as ‘nice nun’ – the audience’s role was to imagine us both in wimples 🙂

'Poet with Punch' Matt Windle, and Polly Robinson rehearse 'Nun's Talking'

‘Poet with Punch’ Matt Windle, and Polly Stretton rehearse ‘Nun’s Talking’

Nuns Talking

‘Oh those boys
oh, those boys,
full of nonsense,
full of noise,
can’t they keep their voices down?
Running round and round and round.’

‘Headmistress, please,
do not fret so.
They mean no harm,
they’re young, you know.’

‘Sister Ursula, you see no fault
in any boy doing somersaults
or stealing cake from the table.
They must learn
to kneel, be prayerful.
Giving them an inch is fatal!’

‘Headmistress, they are but boys
they have no home, they have few toys,
we are all to them, and more,
the minute they walk through our door.’

‘Bah! I say, ‘but boys’ indeed,
all they want is a jolly good feed.
They do not want to work at all,
lazy boys who play with balls.
They should work hard at their studies,
not play football with their buddies.
I’m tired of wiping noses, bloodied,
they come in with their boots all muddied…’

‘Sister, Sister, patience please,
there is no harm in bloodied knees,
let them have some fun and joy,
it is not easy, being a boy.’

Polly Stretton © 2015

Questions To Schoolboys

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Where did you come from
where did you go?
Where did you come from
so long ago?

A home of love and lots of life,
or a place of danger,
hate and strife?
Did your past inform the ways
you lived at school,
your work, your play?

Did you think all was the same,
that life had played a wretched game?
Did you know why you were here
in this mansion, full of fear?
Or maybe you just loved the stones
wishing for comfort to your bones.

Did you love three meals a day?
What if you dared to disobey?
Were you thought a tearaway?

Were you beaten?

Was all fair in the schoolroom?
Were you scared of the wooden spoon?
Were your questions ever answered?
Did you dare to ask?

Where did you come from
where did you go?
Where did you come from
so long ago?

Polly Stretton © 2015

As part of the Croome Poets project, Matt Windle ‘poet with punch’ and I were privileged to lead a project with young poets. The project was to create a poetry slam for young poets on the theme ‘School Good or Bad.’

Following several workshops and a tour, the young poets delivered their poems in the marquee on the front lawn of Croome Wednesday 29 July. Matt and I also performed some poems we’d written on topic during the judging and the poem above is one of them. Young poet Ellie Courtman was the winner of the poetry slam.

Croome Court was a boys’ school between 1948-1978 and this was the basis for the project. Personally, as you can see from the poem here, I had more questions than answers about the school.

Intelligence

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Written as part of the Croome Poets projects – this one refers to the requisitioning of Croome during WWII

Intelligence

They requisitioned, in the forties,
Croome buildings
ready for battle sorties.
Defford scientists, keen and furtive,
test flight radar. Success emerges
to counteract enemy pressure.

Wild experiments; deep developments;
historic hubris; high intelligence,
vital parts for winning in war,
heralds of mystery, a secret corps.

Taken for granted, mapping the future
plans and charts, bold confident troopers
pointing out problems; various squadrons
smoke smelly Woodbines and drink strong tan tea;

without them…what could our lives be?

Blue-grey uniforms grimly warned
to ‘give nothing away when writing home’,
anonymous codes in the aerodrome,
this was Defford, unknown, overflown.

Polly Stretton © 2015

Soul To Sole Project – The Video

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It was amazing working with Maud van den Broecke (shoemaker) and Clare Harris, the Creative Director of Croome: Redefined, and many other talented creative peeps on the Soul to Sole project.

Soul to Sole Project – click here
As Clare says in this video, we worked on characters who were ‘…a part of Croome history that might have been overlooked.’

William’s Footprint

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If soles could talk
what tales they’d tell
of statues – alive! –
hot walls and wishing wells;
of a serpentine river
and a man-made lake,
of Quercus ilex
and poison Mandrake.

If soles could talk
what tales they’d tell,
of the walled kitchen garden
and glass cloche bells,
of boys of seven
who stoke the heated wall,
while the dipping pond
is their longed for call.

If soles could talk
what tales they’d tell,
of the Druid and Sabrina’s
trysts in the dell;
of mischievous Pan
piping high and sweet,
the goat-god spies on them
in the grotto where they meet.

If soles could talk
what tales they’d tell,
of the nymphs of Croome,
wooded islands where they dwell,
and head gardener Will
wielding spade and pruning hook;
he is grounded and ready
to write his book.

Polly Stretton © 2014

This poem, which celebrates William Dean, the head gardener of Croome in the late 18th and early 19th century, appears in the Soul to Sole project in the basement of Croome Court where Polly is a creative resident.

Four Terms

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Near Temple Greenhouse, a Lancelot place
Evergreen Shrubbery with its warm embrace
sees criss-crossed walks, hears insect legs thrumming;
pale plinths await lost statues’ homecoming.
Four empty corners once held Roman Terms,
there’s nothing where splendour, once affirmed,
slipped away for mysterious reasons;
cool, eye-catching Elysian Seasons.
Yet cedars of Lebanon fan the park,
while winds whine and winnow, whispering dark,
seeking heads and shoulders vanished from plinths
missed in a moment and mourned ever since.

Olympian gates in fields of flowers
hang on the return of hidden Hours.

Polly Stretton © 2015