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House Anthems:
‘You came with morning.
Then every dawning after.
Freshened. New grass. Life.’
The final collection in Ralph Dartford's 'Recovery Trilogy' sees the poet meditating on the tragic death of his beloved brother, Joseph, and how he lived in the mythical house of England: a nation of waving flags seen through soft focus sunlight. Here are his people, their misfitting tales that scratch and count the bricks of a private island imprisoned within its own walls, rituals and loneliness.
Warm and lyrical, visceral in its fury, but finally resolute in its ceaseless quest for love and tenderness. This concluding collection dances the demand for better days – that we all must have the opportunity to recover and sing together. Whatever the cost to the crumbling mortar of old Albion.
Early praise for House Anthems
“Ralph Dartford’s House Anthems highlights the contradictions of living in a small industrial town while having a large, creative, and expansive mind. Music becomes a vortex, a place to channel all those emerging creative thoughts and feelings. In House Anthems, Dartford undertakes the tricky work of weaving these songs' lyrics or themes into poetic memory, but it never seems forced. What emerges is a poetic coming-of-age book with the modern strength of popular music and the ancient mode of storytelling. A pleasure.”
– Roger Robinson (winner of the TS Eliot Prize for A Portable Paradise)
“Firstly, you should read this because of these pitch-perfect lyrical and elegiac poems with their musicality and sudden sharp heartstopper lines. But it is also an important and unusual look at masculinity being formed and unformed somewhere between the twin poles of Basildon and Bradford, mourning and evening and a post-war England ever poised on the edge of a brave new future and an imagined safer past.”
– Kate Fox (author of The Oscillations, as heard on BBC Radio 3’s The Verb)
“Ralph Dartford’s sensitivity and perceptive poetry are razor-sharp in capturing the serendipity of both life and place. His choice of music to accompany each piece is perfection. House Anthems is nothing short of brilliant!”
– Jill Adam (Director, Louder than Words festival)
“From Basildon to Bradford, Ralph Dartford has composed a fractured libretto to an imaginary soundtrack for the suburbs and satellite towns of our often unfair isle. Fuelled by a primeval sense of loss, love and healing and shaped by a maestro’s ear for the music of language, House Anthems is a soaring, heart-bruising triumph.”
– Russ Litten (author of Kingdom)
Link to House Anthems:
https://www.valleypressuk.com/preorder/p/house-anthems
Biogs
Ralph Dartford:
Ralph Dartford hails from Basildon in Essex, and now lives in West Yorkshire, having got there via Australia, Barcelona, and Los Angeles. He was a founding member of influential spoken word collective ‘A Firm of Poets’, and his first pamphlet of poetry, Cigarettes, Beer and Love, was published by Ossett Observer Presents in 2013. His first collection, Recovery Songs, was published by Valley Press in 2019, and Hidden Music followed in 2021.
Ralph is the poetry editor at Northern Gravy and is studying for a Creative Writing PhD at the University of Huddersfield, where his practice and research is concentrated on the working-class poetry of the twenty-first century. For gainful employment, Ralph works as a project manager and educator for the National Literacy Trust within the Criminal Justice team.
Chérie Taylor Battiste:
Born in London and raised in Leeds. Chérie’s debut poetry collection ‘Lioness’ (Valley Press) explores themes of identity, race, family, community, nature, otherness, wellbeing, relationship abuse and more.
Mark Pratt:
Mark Pratt's heady stage presence relies on an irresistible combination of heavy blues riffs and blunt, thought-provoking lyrics. He storms the stage unapologetically, demanding full attention rather than providing the ambience some acoustic acts are known for.
