Books For Keeps
  • Home
  • Reviews
  • Articles
  • Past Issues
  • Latest Issue
  • Authors and Artists
  • Latest News
  • Search
  • Menu Menu
November 1, 2009/in I Wish I'd Written /by Richard Hill
This article is featured in BfK 179 November 2009
This article is in the I Wish I'd Written Category

I Wish I’d Written: Hilary McKay

Author: Hilary McKay

Hilary McKay on a poem that is a glimpse of passion and denial…

I liked ‘Overheard on a Saltmarsh’ when I didn’t like poetry. When I was very young, and poetry was nothing but a fancy variation on boredom, invented and declaimed by adults with no reference to the desires of their audiences.

There was nothing fancy about this poem. It was all plain words, as austere as a saltmarsh itself. The only poetry was in the silver stringing of those words together.

Then magic was created. A landscape of moonlight and wind, deep mud and dark water. There was a goblin and a nymph and a circle of green glass beads on a silver ring, stolen from the moon, held by the nymph, desired by the goblin. ‘Give them me,’ demands the dark love of the goblin and the nymph replies, ‘No.’

That is all there is. A fragment of conversation overheard. A glimpse of passion and denial. But for me an enchantment that began early, in the familiar world of the saltmarshes on my doorstep, where I hunted for cockles and King John’s treasure, and gathered samphire and sea lavender, and howled in the mud like the goblin, and fell in love with a string of perfect words. I didn’t even know it was a poem.

But it was.

‘Overheard on a Saltmarsh’ by Harold Monro can be found in numerous anthologies. It is also Carol Ann Duffy’s featured poem in the ‘Poets’ Favourite Poem’ series published by Young Picador (978 0 330 51712 6, £5.99 pbk).

Hilary McKay’s latest book is Wishing for Tomorrow, the sequel to A Little Princess, published by Hodder, 978 0 340 95653 3, £10.99 hbk (see review in BfK No. 178).

Share this entry
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on WhatsApp
  • Share on Pinterest
  • Share on LinkedIn
  • Share on Reddit
  • Share by Mail
http://booksforkeeps.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/bfklogo.png 0 0 Richard Hill http://booksforkeeps.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/bfklogo.png Richard Hill2009-11-01 09:20:062021-11-21 15:12:51I Wish I’d Written: Hilary McKay
BfK 254 May 2022 Download BfK Issue BfK 254 May 2022
Skip to an Issue:

Related Articles

I Wish I’d Written: Derek Keilty
BfK 253 March 2022
I Wish I’d Written: Elys Dolan
BfK 252 January 2022
I Wish I’d Written: Daisy May Johnson
BfK 249 July 2021
I Wish I’d Written: Cath Howe
BfK 248 May 2021
I Wish I’d Written: Em Norry
BfK 247 March 2021
I Wish I’d Written: Alex Wheatle
BfK 246 January 2021
I Wish I’d Written: Sarah Lean
BfK 245 November 2020
I Wish I’d Written: Joseph Coelho
BfK Poetry Special October 2020

About Us

Launched in 1980, we’ve reviewed hundreds of new children’s books each year and published articles on every aspect of writing for children.

Read More

Follow Us

Latest News

Peter Bently and Steven Lenton named winners of The Children’s Book Award 2022

June 27, 2022

Shortlist for the 2022 SLA Information Book Award

June 23, 2022

2022 Yoto Carnegie Greenaway Winners Announced

June 16, 2022

Contact Us

Books for Keeps,
30 Winton Avenue,
London,
N11 2AT

Telephone: 0780 789 3369

ISSN: 0143-909X (this is our International Standard Serial Number).

© Copyright 2022 - Books For Keeps | Proudly Built by Lemongrass Media - Web Design Buckinghamshire
Good Reads: St Martin’s Garden Primary School Hal’s Reading Diary: November 2009
Scroll to top