The Giddings, John Greening

‘From the opening of this pamphlet, it is clear that we are in the hands of a masterful guide’
Stand, Winter 2021

An unnamed traveller is distracted from his business trip by a sign ‘To the Giddings’. He sets off walking through the Huntingdonshire landscape, with its Civil War associations and modern military bases, past wind turbines and fragments of ancient woodland, the trees providing a commentary in a variety of verse forms – lyrical, sardonic, admonitory. But it turns out that he is also walking through time and, after a powerful encounter with Nicholas Ferrar in 17th-century Little Gidding, towards a mysterious metamorphosis. In the tradition of The Pilgrim’s Progress, and owing something to Ted Hughes’s Gaudete, this ingenious and musical interweaving of verse and prose continues John Greening’s earlier series of long ‘dream poems’. Composed before the pandemic, The Giddings still tells a highly relevant story about a search for spiritual meaning and the power of nature in dark times.

John Greening is a poet, critic and playwright. Born in 1954 in Chiswick, he was brought up near Heathrow Airport and attended university at Swansea, Mannheim and Exeter. His poetry has been awarded the Bridport Prize, the TLS Centenary Prize, the Arvon Prize and a Cholmondeley Award.

The year of this pamphlet also saw the publication of his edition of Iain Crichton Smith, Deer on the High Hills, and a major anthology of country house poems Hollow Palaces – co-edited with Kevin Gardner. Gardner also edited John Greening’s new Selected Poems, The Interpretation of Owls, which appeared in 2023. John Greening is married, with two daughters. For further details see his website www.johngreening.co.uk or visit John Greening (poet) – Wikipedia