Hailing Foxes: a Gert Macky book, in asscociation with the poetry can, illustrated by the inimitable Dru Marland.

There is a copy of this delightful small book available for one fortunate winner. To enter the competition please leave the answer to this question on the blog or on The Review Blog Facebook page. The answer is somewhere in the review here.

What does gert macky mean in Bristolian?


Hailing Foxes: a Gert Macky book, in asscociation with the poetry can, illustrated by the inimitable Dru Marland.

The inimitable Dru Marland, who made it all happen

About Hailing Foxes:

Unseen in the street plan of any city run the paths of the wild creatures whose lives are lived alongside ours, and which occasionally cross our own. And sometimes a door will unexpectedly open to that other city,  showing us something startling and unforgettable; foxes, falcons, mice, whales, balloons, reckless pilots, lost ships. All we need to do is pay attention.Hailing Foxes follows Inking Bitterns, our previous book of poems and pictures about wildness; and this time we look at what’s around us in Bristol, in this year when the city is Green Capital.

As a little point of interest, 'gert macky' ... means 'very big' in Bristolian. The excellent Tangent Books publish a Dictionary of Bristle, if you really want to try going native.

Dru Marland is arguably the most inspirational woman I know. Poet, artist, dreamer, blogger and mender of anything mechanical,  Dru, short for the rarely used Drusilla, lives on a canal and is father (yes, you did read that right) to Boat Teenager. Her story can be read here Being Drusilla

This small book is a compilation of beautifully written poems mostly about nature and mostly around the Bristol area and it is stunning illustrated by Dru. Here is the preface and what Ben Banyard has to say about the illustrations:

 The Illustrated Fox

With a chime of brush on jam jar

she drew the Totterdown fox a field,

stroked its snout to query Dundry's spire

coloured the grey of Three Lamps

showed it Chew and Blagdon water.

Its nightly mooch of Tesco's bins

splashed midnight Wraxall blue

but she left Brunel's bridge as a beacon,

a North Star to divine it's flyover home,

let it dream of free range chicken.

The poems, written by twenty different wordsmiths, range greatly in style and scope, but all have one thing in common, true mastery of the genre and a love of the area and nature.

It is a perfect book to have on the bedside to read a poem or two from if you feel a bit low and want to enjoy the big world outside. It is also an attractively priced and very acceptable gift and generally sells for £5 plus postage. A brilliant stocking filler for any one of any age that loves something unusual and different. The clear and colourful pictures would appeal to adults and also to small children and be a lovely introduction to a less Disneyfied look at life.

I found this from Jinny Peberdee unbelievably beautiful and felt I would like to share the page in its entirety.

© Jinny Peberdee
You can find what Jinny does when she is not writing poems by clicking here on her name 'Jinny Peberday'



Featuring poems from some of Bristol's finest poets - Ben Banyard, Pameli Benham, Colin Brown, Liz Brownlee, Stewart Carswell, Rachael Clyne, Dominic Fisher, Ruby Fowden-Willey, Kathy Gee, Deborah Harvey, Hazel Hammond, David C Johnson, Dru Marland, Jinny Peberday, Tom Sastry, Pat Simmons, Alan Summers, John Terry, Vanessa Whiteley, Shirley Wright - the book is a mini master piece and it has been a genuine pleasure to read and love it.

The book is available from multiple outlets but here is the link to one: Etsy This will take you to Dru Marland's selling page.

© Diana Milne September 2016