For many years my creative work was in black and white photography (the wet sort!) with large format cameras – landscapes and still lifes. I’ve never been able to invent a reasonable explanation for why I now write poetry instead – but maybe that’s because my underlying concerns haven’t changed.
My working processes are also uncannily similar whatever medium I’m working in, similary contemplative, detailed, all-consuming, perfectionist and nerve-wracking.
Biography
Jane Routh moved to North Lancashire in 1971, originally to teach at Lancaster University. She’s lived in Tatham for 35 years, where she’s planted several thousand trees on her smallholding, as well as looking after an Ancient Semi-Natural Woodland and a flock of geese.
Before poetry claimed her creative energy, Jane’s photographs were exhibited in group and solo shows at galleries in the north and midlands. Since then, she’s published two full collections of poetry, as well pamphlets and anthologised selections. Her third collection is due in 2010.
The selections for Flax 019 are drawn from personal writings which started life as a weather diary.
Publications
Poetry
Books:
Teach Yourself Mapmaking (Smith/Doorstop, 2006)
Circumnavigation (Smith/Doorstop, 2002)
Pamphlet:
Waiting for H5N1 (Templar Poetry, 2007)
Selection anthologised in:
The Allotment: New Lyric Poets ed Andy Brown (Stride, 2006)
Jane makes hand-stitched, limited edition pamphlets for some of her poems. Her work can also be read at poetrypf and at The Poem
Non-fiction
‘Census’ in Countourlines ed Jane Hughes and Neil Wenborn (Salt, forthcoming autumn 2009)
‘Footwork‘ in Necessary Steps ed David Kennedy (Shearsman, 2007)
Occasional articles and reviews in magazines; and more regular reviews for stridemagazine.co.uk, of which these are some recent examples: August 2009, March 2009 and March 2008
Reviews
CIRCUMNAVIGATION:
Her landscape has the clean starkness of Anglo Saxon poetry where humans have yet fully to imprint their presence. True there are people apart from the ever-present narrator in these poems, but they appear as shadows, or feet, or footprints…which are as anonymous as the natural life around them.
…her poetry is warm and humane. Her imagery is striking in its ability to invoke the extraordinary in the world of small things. (Joe Sheerin, Poetry London)
… the great pleasure of Routh’s writing is that her sensibilities are as specific as her environment. (Vic Allen, Artscene)
Routh's lines… have an unforced rhythm and are beautifully measured. This is the assured, original voice of a poet who can give her poems a charge of energy by taking risks with language. (Elizabeth Burns, stridemagazine)
TEACH YOURSELF MAPMAKING:
This is Jane Routh's second collection; it confirms the high regard with which her first, Circumnavigation, was received. Teach Yourself Mapmaking is a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, deservedly so. Its range is impressive, its vivid language recreates the physical sensation of what is being described, ranging from the gritty and muscular to the tender and deeply thoughtful. Smith/Doorstop have a star on their list. (Matt Simpson , stridemagazine)
Routh’s haunted pastoral is enlarged by its sense of proximity to the here-and-now…’The Reedbed’ offers a great example of how she can synthesise diction and description. (Paul Farley, Poetry London)
This is a beautifully balanced collection. (PBS selectors)
I strongly recommend this book: it is rural, traditional in a way, but Jane Routh is a modern woman. She never falls into inert pastoral, is a fine musician, and her places are always alive with the voices of the people who have inhabited them (John Muckle, Shearsman)
WAITING FOR H5N1
…a poetry pamphlet that could almost be a miniature novel ... It’s elegant, tough stuff with a strong ring of authenticity, and exactly the sort of short, sharp concept that suits the poetry pamphlet format. (Jon Stone, the roundtable review)
Performances
The Wordsworth Trust, 2008. StAnza (St. Andrews) and Words by the Water (Keswick), 2007, at Aldeburgh Poetry Festival, 2006.
Jane has also given recent readings at The Sedbergh Book Festival, Wordplay in Shetland, Lancaster Literature Festival, the Manchester Literature Festival and for several arts venues such as the Brewery Arts Centre, Kendal.
In 2005 she read some of her sea poetry for the ‘Sea Britain’ celebrations in the Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich, and was one of nine poets across the UK participating in ‘Random Acts of Poetry’ during the week of National Poetry Day.
