All sides of the Shire.
Staffordshire, The Creative County.
Rise up to Flash the village heights to cross the Dane at the Three Shires Head, moorlands break across grit-stone rocks,
Harriers drift on the breeze along castled crags.
Fern and moss adorn dripping walls of Lud’s secreted creviced church peaked at The Roaches climbing clouds that watch Dove wings along border lines.
Churnet churns to Tittesworth dam, to silk and dye Leek, a double sun-set illuminates between the folded hills, host of Elder, Oak and Ash, rolling to the shore of Rudyard Lake, where Kipling is said to have got his name, among Victorian pleasures of steam and tea and rowing boats,
Oat cakes and jam, all garlanded by the sound of brass.
Cheadle weaves its silken place with all the skill of arts and crafts, fine design that suits the eye tracks skyward to the light of Pugin’s Gem.
Brass and copper were founded here and coal extracted from the pits, gateway to lofty hills and woodland dale and Alton Towers pleasure grounds; the roller coaster holds the curves and settles to ride the Peak.
At Uttoxeter we re-find the Dove, close furlong finish of geldings and earth moving diggers,

to the acoustic festivities of Spook Market Days, where Dr Johnson once paid penance in the pouring rain, as the Spider charmed the Fly into parlour games.
The air has the hint of malt and yeast, as we find the Trent in our brewery town,
Burton’s fine ales from bitter to stout to real ale pubs where they brew their own, the poets profess in their spoken worlds the liquid verse, praise maltings and drays, coopers and brewers, hops and yeast; the marmite spreads, like it or not, towards a quenching thirst.
Rugeley, hill over the field, on the fringe of the chase has power and light, sparking coals into homes from once deep shafts into carboniferous seams now the rainforest of warehouses dispense their books, open pages spreading words, kindle new thoughts.
At Tamworth, where Tame meets Anker, spilling full lap through meadowlands;
Offa palaced in the castled grounds of Sandybacks and Plastic Pigs,
Enigma Heroes learned to swim, ski’s ride summers of man-made frosts, lost Poet, preached his legacy of learning and Policeman Peel built his weaving mills, warp and weft, webbing and tape, building his new manifesto.
In the City, Lichfield, we find brooks that branch their way to seek the Trent.

Cathedral raises spires to Saxon kings, as the poet swan glides the minster pool.
Darwins and Johnsons refreshed our thought as Garrick performed to entertain,
Bower days and festivals, the tombolas, the writers, the Jazz.
Out among the wider fields legions held walls on Watling St and Earls gave halls to the Nations trust.
On to the seams of Burntwood, deep pit town of stainless steel men who reflect the sun and the moon to streets, where we find new coals to heat the hearth, when livings are made it’s time to play in the smallest park or out on the chase where the deer roam and the Brambling and Yellowhammer call.
The Chase to Cannock, the brambled woods and heathered heath, cover the Triassic bunter, as the breeze carries the Cornovii chants from Castle Ring to Shugborough, the Celts migrate from Latin conventions.
At dusk the Nightjars churr and crouch then take to the wing as silent moths, spinning their lichen-grey flighty threads,
‘till the half light fades into the coniferous.
The Conqueror took the land of fifteen ploughs from Algar and raised wheat for centuries of summers, until they found the gold of Cannock coal and built a town to dig it out, feeding the needs of Black Country steam, pistons fired and forged out of sweat, muscles gathered, flexed,

churn through the spoils.
Ripples rise among the reeds the water voles skit to earth when dippers plunge the Wom, womb stream, birthing channel of Wombourne nails and undershot mills, tamed by unrelenting kings of iron, squeezed, forced, to trickle drain the Smestow release.
We find the Sow waters across the marshes at the landing place,
Stafford, Isle of Bethnei, shire town, castled walls and renaissance halls.
Shoe town once, now diesel engines, electricity and glue, power and stick our county together; they raised the complete angler and the Laureate here, where dialects change to softer tones.
Northward and back to the Trent among the Stone Navigations,
Grand Trunk, Star lock, water lined with redbrick, brewhouse, warehouse, green cream, signs of Joules Stone Ales;
Lindesfarne missionary town,
Penda’s palace town, border town, coach town, barge town,
Stone town, Stone.

In the Lyme Forest was built a castle, a Newcastle under the Lymes; where hands made bricks, made briars, weaved cotton, made hats, dug coal, cast iron, tried pots, didn’t like them.
One of the Newcastles of the world, does its own things, steadfast, sure footed, will not be amalgamated.
See the world as a garden, behind Biddulph Grange, nested in the bowl of Mow Cop and moor;
Biddulph resting, beside the pit, as the wolf howls to the winds that cross border plains, carrying crusade tales to the source of the Trent.
And so we return and rise up to Flash, the village heights at the head of the shire. stitched together by meadow and stream, heath and hill, road and rail, river and canal.
Border of Danelaw, keeper of hoards, land of silk and cotton, iron and coal, kingdoms and castles;
This our canvas, our clay, our ink, where we live, breathe, create.
Mal Dewhirst
Staffordshire Poet Laureate 2012/13.