‘Peter Bennet’s poetry evokes a sense of place and history—in this case, Northumberland , where the poet has lived for most of his life—with such ingenious power that it transcends the specific and provides tools to help us think about the concepts of time and space generally ... Bennet, whose body of work is superbly curated in Bloodaxe’s Nayler & Folly Wood retrospective, deserves a wide audience in the Americas. His fierce attention to the local opens out into the universal.’ - Daniel A. Rabuzzi, The Ocean State Review

"Peter Bennet considers the moments of interaction between past and present, fairytale and fact, using folklore’s staples to cast light on contemporary concerns. His watchful, thicketed landscapes, the stateliness of his language, all fit themselves perfectly to winter. This is fireside poetry." — Sarah Crown, The Guardian

‘Bennet often tips his hat to his literary heroes, wielding the instructive tone of Norman MacCaig, the direct address of W.S. Graham, and Robert Browning’s sophisticated handling of the dramatic monologue and acoustic texturing, but it is to the imagining of a poetic place that Bennet gives his all.’ – Soumyaroop Majumdar, READ

‘Bennet really does know, very precisely, how to contrive the entry of the powers of place and history into his poems without depriving them of idiosyncrasy, surprise, or their darker natures.’ – Sean O’Brien, The Sunday Times

‘Often in Bennet’s poetry there is a sort of magical realism at work, reinforced by linguistic exuberance and rhythmic energy: this is poetry that – unfashionably – sings.’ – Roger Caldwell, Times Literary Supplement

‘Peter Bennet inhabits the past convincingly – wholly present in the worlds he evokes. This is a rare and enviable thing. There is an unforced elegance and control in his work, and the formal register he adopts fits his rich subject-matter perfectly.’ – Helen Mort, Poetry London

‘Bennet was a painter before he became a poet, and has written a number of poems that are set in tangibly realised landscapes. This one, too, gives the impression of a real place - nowhere more compellingly than in its last two lines with their brilliant juxtaposition of images: the “homing plane” that “blinks across the ankles of Orion”… We’re close to music and history, as well as painting, but with no sense that language itself is less than the primary fascination.’ – Carol Rumens, Poem of the Week, The Guardian, on ‘The Place I Am’ from Nayler & Folly Wood 

‘In “Pastoral” Bennet may see himself as “an upstart in the poetry of fields”, but in the craft of poetry he is a master.’ – William Bedford, The High Window

'Nayler & Folly Wood by Peter Bennet includes work from different stages of the poet’s career, including his masterful Flambard collections, offering a wide-ranging selection of precise, mystical and often astonishing poems.’  – Will Mackie, New Writing North (New & recent poetry from the North)

'It’s hard to do justice to the complexity and variety of this long sequence which demands and repays several readings [...] There’s considerable erudition in this collection [...] It is likely to repay reading and re-reading.' – Kathleen Bell, The High Window, on Nayler & Folly Wood

‘It is that imaginative power and Bennet’s skill that makes this book such a huge pleasure. He has a way of sliding images through and against one another that is both surprising and deeply involving […] We know we’re in good hands with a Peter Bennet poem that will have a warm inevitability and completeness about it, that is never water-tight or airless, but which always allows the reader to live and breathe in its world.’ – Ian Pople, The High Window

Peter Bennet taught in secondary and further education, including work with redundant steelworkers following the closure of Consett Steel Works, and spent 16 years as Tutor Organiser for Northumberland with the Workers’ Educational Association. He lived for 33 years near the Wild Hills o’Wanney in Northumberland, in a cottage associated with the ballad writer James Armstrong, author of Wannie Blossoms. He now lives in North Shields. His Bloodaxe The Glass Swarm (2008) was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize.

13     Light on the Wanney Crags
    14     Crazy Dog
    15     The Silence
    16     Lottie Little and the Trees
    17     Souvenir of Malling
    18     Síle na Gig or Playmate of the Month
    19     Barmaid
    20     Funny Man
    21     Looking Through a Parched Sea Holly Bush
    22     Fête Day at Bellingham
    24     Not at Home
    25     Hareshaw Linn
    26     Winter Hills
    27     Duddo Stones
    28     Face Painting at Threpwood Hill
    29     First Calf
    30     At the Queen’s Hall
    31     The Old Moor House
    32     Cancer Patient
    33     Extraction
    34     Logan Street
    35     The Murrough Lady
    38     Berenson at the Borghese
    39     The Exhibition of the Esquimaux
    41     Le Plan des Pennes

    43     THE LONG PACK

    63     Ha-Ha
    64     Spalpeen
    65     Tithonus at Kielder
    66     Fairytale
    67     The Fossil
    68     The Damp Harmonium
    69     The Pigeon Loft
    70     Squiffy
    71     Breathe Carefully
    72     The Imp
    73     The Sally Garden
    74     The Angel

    75     JIGGER NODS

    97     The Silver of the Mirror
    99     The Squirrel
    100     The Redesdale Rowan
    101     The Tourist
    102     Après-midi
    103     St George’s Day
    104     Black Country Browning

    105     FOLLY WOOD

    116     The Brass Band
    118     The Acorn
    119     The Green Corn
    120     The Bather
    121     Unity in the Englischer Garten
    122     Penny Dreadful

    123     BOBBY BENDICK'S RIDE

    132     Epithalamium
    133     Sentinels
    134     The Owl Herb
    135     Augenlicht
    136     Mademoiselle de Silhouette
    137     The Mistress
    138     The Place I Am
    139     The Riddle
    140     Auberge
    141     The Unsafe Landing
    142     The Comfort Service
    143     The Laboratory
    144     A Helpmeet for Protestant Mystics
    145     The Better Place
    146     Gantries
    147     The Magic Castle

    149     LANDSCAPE WITH PSYCHE

    156     Proxy
    157     Next Time
    158     After Pevsner
    159     Pastoral
    160     Virgil
    161     French Windows
    162     Sanquar

    163     LADDEREDGE AND COTISLEA

    174     The Gypsy Fiddle
    175     The Vapour Trail
    176     Death and the Spinster
    177     My Mother at Erbistock
    178     A Piano in Hobart

    181     NAYLER

    219     Vade Mecum
    220     Graduands
    221     The Scare
    222     À Côté de la Sorgues
    223     Iron Railings
    224     MCMLVI
    225     The Promenade
    226     The Lucky Ones
    227     Taliesin
    228     The Floor Above
    229     Night Wanderers
    230     Ex Sublimis
    231     Icarus
    232     The Doorstop
    233     Vale Royal
    234     Klutvang
    235     Gestalt
    236     Neck Verse
    237     The Kite
    238     The Refugee
    239     Hemistich
    240     An Invitation
    241     The Goodbye Note
    242     Shadowed Water
    243     My Mephistopheles

    245     Notes