Modern and Contemporary Yorkshire Poetry

Cultural Identities, Political Crises

Kyra Piperides

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN:
  9781032063409
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000910391
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Delving into the landscapes and politics of twentieth- and twenty-first-century South, East, and West Yorkshire, Modern and Contemporary Yorkshire Poetry: Cultural Identities, Political Crises theorises Yorkshire as a distinct region of poetry in its own right. In outlining the commonalities and parameters of this branch of poetry, Modern and Contemporary Yorkshire Poetry engages the work with a selection of poets writing in and about the region since 1945, including Philip Larkin, Ted Hughes, Simon Armitage, Helen Mort, Zaffar Kunial, Kate Fox, and Vicky Foster. Charting the developments in Yorkshire poetry, this book explores several key contexts – including deindustrialisation, the Miners' Strikes, and Brexit – in detail, evidencing the impacts of these sociopolitical events on the poetry of a region. Modern and Contemporary Yorkshire Poetry investigates 75 years of poetry to ask the question: what is Yorkshire poetry? In other words, what is it that connects poems by these writers, whilst setting them apart from poetry of other UK regions?

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Credits Page
• Introduction
• 1 Places, People, and Narrative Perspectives in Philip Larkin’s East Yorkshire
• 2 Place and Identity in Modern and Contemporary Poetry from East Yorkshire
• 3 Cultural Histories and Personal Identities in Ted Hughes’s West Yorkshire Poetry: ‘Archaeology of the mouth’ in Ted Hughes’s Upper Calder Valley
• 4 Personal, Political, and Place-Based Identities in Modern and Contemporary South Yorkshire Poetry
• 5 (Re)Defining Place-Based Identities in Simon Armitage’s Writing from and of West Yorkshire
• 6 Identities, Stereotypes, and Legacies of Place in Modern and Contemporary West Yorkshire Poetry
• 7 Identity and the Politics of Brexit in Matt Abbott’s West Yorkshire
• Conclusions
• Index