Under the Rock: The Poetry of a Place

“Terrific: illuminating, gripping and deeply rooted in its setting” – Amy Liptrot, author of The Outrun, “Riveting, raw … alarming and unforgettable” – Rob Cowen, author of Common Ground Carved from the valley side above Mytholmroyd in Calderdale, West Yorkshire, Scout Rock is a steep crag overlooking wooded slopes and flat weed-tangled plateaus. To many it is unremarkable, to others it is a doomed place where 18th-century thieves would hide out; where the town tip once sat, suicides leapt to their death and the asbestos that claimed so many lives was buried in the soil. Scout Rock is also the subject of Ted Hughes’s 1963 essay ‘The Rock’, in which the poet describes growing up across the valley from “my spiritual midwife...both the curtain and backdrop to my existence.” Into this beautiful, dark and complex landscape steps Benjamin Myers, asking: are unremarkable places made remarkable by the minds that map them? The result is a lyrical and unflinching investigation into nature, literature, history, memory and the very meaning of place in modern Britain.

Table of Contents:
Contents; Introduction.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii; PART I: Wood.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1; Field Notes I. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93; PART II: Earth.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103; Field Notes II.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171; PART III: Water.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179; Field Notes III.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249; PART IV: Rock. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257; Field Notes IV.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330; CODA: Beyond.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337; Sources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355; Acknowledgements.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361; Index.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363

About the Author :
Benjamin Myers is an author, journalist and poet. His novels include The Gallows Pole (2017), which received the Roger Deakin Award; Turning Blue (2016); Beastings (2014) which won the Portico Prize For Literature and the Northern Writers’ Award, was longlisted for a Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Award 2015 and chosen by Robert Macfarlane as one of his books of 2014; Pig Iron (2012), which won the inaugural Gordon Burn Prize and was runner-up in The Guardian’s Not The Booker Prize; and Richard (2010), a Sunday Times book of the year. His journalism regularly appears in The Guardian, New Statesman, Mojo, Caught By The River, New Scientist and others. In 2017 he was selected as writer for the International Literature Showcase. He lives in the Upper Calder Valley, West Yorkshire.

Review :
'A bone-tingling book' - Richard Benson