New Addition To Beth’s Poetry Trail

Beth’s Poetry Trail have installed a new poster poem at Belper Railway station on Platform 1.

The Belper Railway station platform is the only site on Beth’s Poetry Trail where the poem is occasionally changed.

The new poem appropriately enough is titled ‘Travel’ and it was written by Edna St Vincent Millay. Wikipedia describes her thus: ‘Edna St. Vincent Millay was an American poet and playwright. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923, the third woman to win the award for poetry, and was also known for her feminist activism.’

The Beth Fender Memorial Fund have also published ‘Chain of Memories’, an anthology of Beth Fender’s poetry. This can be borrowed from Derbyshire libraries or purchased for £5 from the Trail website http://bethspoetrytrail.co.uk/

To preview the book via Amazon go to: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1542900484

Beth’s Poetry Trail is found throughout Belper and is a permanent memorial to Beth Fender who founded the town’s first two poetry groups.

A poem, or extract, is installed at 20 sites around the town. Each poem has been interpreted in a manner appropriate to the poem and the setting, as far as possible. Poets represented include: Spike Milligan, Emily Dickinson, R L Stevenson, Gerard Manley Hopkins and Philip Larkin.

If you would like to follow the trail can pick up a leaflet which includes a map showing where all the 20 poems can be found in Belper, at Belper Library https://www.derbyshire.gov.uk/leisure/libraries/find_your_local_library/belper/default.asp or Strutts North Mill museum and visitor centre  http://belpernorthmill.org/vistiting.html

The image shows Patricia Bohn, a member of Belper Poetry Circle and Poetry People, admiring the newly installed poem.