Evoking childhood memories and lifelong relationships with humour, poignancy, and preternatural clarity, What Possessed Me also explores the natural world and landscapes in various parts of England, Wales, France, and Greece. Another theme is the work of teaching and other professions seen from the vantage points of provider, recipient, and witness. There are salutes to writers like Edward Thomas, Dannie Abse and Jack Gilbert who, we are told, 'put his life into poetry.' Separate sequences celebrate years of occasional visits to Llandaff Cathedral and its surrounding landscape, and the delights and political revelations of a stay in Athens. This is a book diverse in its moods and subjects but unified by an infectious openness to the moment and to life's joys and sorrows, and an unfolding sense of accumulating experience and insight. It is illuminated by a recurrent sense of inspiration, of 'what possessed me.'

About the Author
John Freeman was born in Essex, grew up in south London and lived in Yorkshire before settling in Wales where for many years he taught English Literature and Creative Writing at Cardiff University. He lives in the Vale of Glamorgan. Worple published Freeman's A Suite For Summer in 2007. What Possessed Me is his eleventh collection. A prize winner in the Poetry's Society's national competition.


Book Information
ISBN 9781905208364
Author John Freeman
Format Paperback
Page Count 100
Imprint Worple Press
Publisher Worple Press