Poetry

All this

forgetting

the bud of flame in

your rowan

coltsfoot moon

strewn at its feet

the house

 

very lit eye fastened to

ribbons

of snow and below

wind-rushed fields

nail tongues

of lark to willow

( From Hallows to Harvest, Cinnamon Press anthology 2019)

 

What Rain Taught Us

 

 

 

‘Sudden and lovely, “italic and clear”, these poems are hungry for the world…which they describe with such virtuosity: Gail Ashton’s poems will delight her readers.’ (John McAuliffe)

‘What makes this collection stand out is the marriage of  experiment to musicality, and the result is an amplification of potency…brave in content and form…a compelling, poignant and gripping narrative of life that sizzles with truth.’ (Jane McKie)

‘…a living and innovative conversation between poet and typographer which follows its own bold and peculiar trajectory.’ (Judy Kendall).

‘It’s rare to come across a collection of poetry that has such a gripping narrative and is simultaneously so visually audacious…a quite extraordinary collection.’ (Susan Richardson)

‘Rain, moonlight and the words of old songs haunt these poems, with their interconnectiing threads of language and unexpected twists and turns on the page.’ (Matthew Francis)

 

The Other Side of Glass

‘Precise, writerly, packed with description and wit…assured and rich. Beautifully spaced, both on the page and in the mind, she insists on an engagement with words, whether an ice-skald riddle or a ditty on the em dash. Her ventures into prose poetry are exciting and intriguing and her command of the single line is admirable: “Look to the stones” she advises us at the end of one poem, while the almost throwaway “dreams of polishing him off daily” is chilling…I look forward to future work in this new assured voice.’ (Judy Kendall)

 

Ghost Songs (Cinnamon Press)

…a finely tuned collection with an ear for the voices that surround us from birth – the voices of family, of fairy tale, of myth, of strangers and the voices of ghosts: all those voices which cannot be silenced.

Gail Ashton not only hears the voices, setting them down with meticulous clarity, but she also sees the places they inhabit and takes us there…whole lives: poignant, affectionate, witty, lucid, this is poetry that allows the ghosts to sing.

 

 

In the Telling (Cinnamon Press)

What inspired this collection of poems? – the certainty that between us and the rest of the world is only stories.

If we could know these stories, we would scent them trembling in open fields. Hear them dancing in a clash of edges. Feel them drawing through the chambers of our hearts. Listen. They knock at forbidden doors. They call to us in strange tongues, skin and bone…

Only Connect (co-editor)

In a fast paced world it is all too easy for life to become fragmented and compartmentalised. This anthology…celebrates an alternative vision that can exist alongside or even between the cracks…so that we connect, ‘only connect.’

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