Lammas Alanna

William Martin (1925-2010) wrote poetry inspired by the social, cultural and religious life of Northumbria past and present. He built his world from myth, from Anglo-Saxon literature and art, children’s games, ballads and street songs, as well as from the history and struggles of pit communities. His poems show both political anger and a wider concern for a society losing its common ground, its rituals and rites of passage. Lammas Alanna is his fourth book of poems. Over its nine sections it traces the death of the Goddess and her final return in the harvest of the Marradharma. He finds her in the Mothergate of the coal mines and in the vulva denes and twin hills near his home (Maiden Paps). He draws on various sources to enrich her image and to brighten his vision of common feasting.