Kathleen Jones
Dixon’s Mill

My great grandfather worked this mill
aged twelve, crawling beneath
the clattering, bucking iron mules
that tore the cotton, threading the air
with fibre, twisting it into yarn,
to weave a million sheets
and pillow cases, hand towels
fancy table covers slubbed
and woven into country scenes
with roses, cottages and wooded hills.

Older, became a pattern maker
punching the holes to set the looms
and skilled at Jacquard which
paid more than just a living wage,
though when I knew him
he was coughing lint from his lungs
in an upstairs room,
spooning watery porridge
like the snot he hawked up
into a shaving mug beside the bed.

Born and raised on a Cumbrian hill farm, Kathleen Jones divides her time between Appleby and Italy. Her latest collection, the Straid Prize-winning Not Saying Goodbye at Gate 21, is recently published by Templar Poetry.

She has been writing since she was a child and has published a dozen books, including six biographies – the latest, Katherine Mansfield: The Storyteller, was published in 2010 by Penguin NZ and Edinburgh University Press. She has also just re-issued two others as e-books – A Passionate Sisterhood, about the sisters, wives and daughters of the Lake poets, and Christina Rosetti: Learning Not To Be First. Both are available on Amazon.

The Weekly Poem is published in our e-newsletter, The Weekly Word, and then on the website – read more poems here>>. Submissions are always welcome from anyone who is a native or resident of Cumbria. Please send poems of up to 20 lines to enquiries@newwritingcumbria.org.uk

• Share
• Tweet
• "&title=""">