Marratide

William Martin (1925-2010) was a poet of extraordinary vision and musicality. Thoroughly grounded in his native North-East England, its pit communities and industry, his song-like poems nevertheless traverse a vast geographical and historical landscape ranging from deep Celtic and Anglo-Saxon sources to the mythology and sacred sites of India, via a passionate political engagement that never limits song to mere rhetoric. He also drew on children's games, ballads and street songs in poems showing both political anger and a wider concern for a society losing its common ground, its rituals and rites of passage.

Marratide: Selected Poemsbrings together poems from William Martin's four collections:Cracknrigg(1983) andHinny Beata(1987) from Taxus Press; andMarra Familia(1993) andLammas Alanna(2000), from Bloodaxe Books. Two comprehensive introductory essays by editors Peter Armstrong and Jake Morris-Campbell discuss the life and poetry of William Martin.

A QR code printed in the book links to archive audio recordings of poems read (and sung) by William Martin.