Radical Routes is a digital publication, curated by the folk at Writing East Midlands, and celebrating the heritage of migration in the Fens of South Lincolnshire. I grew up in Wisbech, a Fenland town at the intersection of Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire and Norfolk, and the Radical Routes team asked me to write about that experience for issue 3 of the magazine. Naturally, I wrote about rural working-class life, my relationship with my dad, and how sometimes you have to leave a place in order to really appreciate it. You can listen to me reading the article on the link below

Radical Routes

Every February (since 2012) four poets take to the internet to write 28 poems across 28 days. This year, our sonnets are about famous sevens. 

Tower Hamlets Cemetery is one of the Magnificent Seven cemeteries. It is located in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets and was originally consecrated in 1841. One of the cemetery’s more famous ‘residents’ is Charles Jamrach, a Victorian menagerie keeper and exotic animal exporter. In 1857, one of Jamrach’s Bengal tigers escaped his menagerie and stalked through London, almost killing a nine-year-old boy.

The Ghost of Jamrach’s Tiger

Every February (since 2012) four poets take to the internet to write 28 poems across 28 days. This year, our sonnets are about famous sevens.

Kensal Green Cemetery is one of the Magnificent Seven cemeteries. It is located in the Royal London Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London, and was originally consecrated in 1833. One of its many famous residents is the Victorian Tightrope Walker, Charles Blondin.

A Balancing Act

Every February (since 2012) four poets take to the internet to write 28 poems across 28 days. This year, our sonnets are about famous sevens.

Nunhead Cemetery is one of the Magnificent Seven cemeteries. It is located in the London Borough of Southwark and was originally consecrated in 1840. Like many places in London, and other cities in the UK, Nunhead cemetery is home to a number of non-native species, including the beautiful, raucous ring-necked parakeet.

The Parakeets of Nunhead Cemetery

Every February (since 2012) four poets take to the internet to write 28 poems across 28 days. This year, our sonnets are about famous sevens.

Abney Park Cemetery is one of the Magnificent Seven cemeteries. It is located in the London Borough of Hackney and was originally consecrated in 1840. In 2007, Amy Winehouse filmed the music video for Back to Black in Abney Park Cemetery.

Back To Black

CONTENT NOTE: THIS POEM EXPLICITLY REFERENCES DEATH.

Every February (since 2012) four poets take to the internet to write 28 poems across 28 days. This year, our sonnets are about famous sevens. 

West Norwood Cemetery is one of the Magnificent Seven cemeteries. It is located in the London Borough of Lambeth and was originally consecrated in 1837. One of its more famous residents is Mrs Isabella Beeton, whose book ‘Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management’ was a seminal instructional text for middle class housewives in the mid-nineteenth century.

How To Be Dead

Every February (since 2012) four poets take to the internet to write 28 poems across 28 days. This year, our sonnets are about famous sevens.

Brompton Cemetery is one of the Magnificent Seven cemeteries. It is located in the Royal London Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and was originally consecrated in 1840. One of its more famous residents is Fanny Brawne, the fiancée and muse to English Romantic poet John Keats. When word got out about their relationship, sometime after Keats’ death, the press vilified Fanny Brawne for being unworthy of the affection of such a great literary hero. Plus ça change, amirite?

The Silent Woman

Poem written at a poetry workshop, after “Refrigerator, 1957" by Thomas Lux. Heres's Lux's original poem: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/09/06/magazine19970728refrigerator-1957

Vacuum Cleaner 2123

A poem inspired by a conversation with a friend about the reduction in unwanted male attention she received after she cut her hair really short.

Rapunzel

A poem written for the #28SonnetsLater project. Inspired by the colour Orange. 
Fen Vixen 
She takes the idle viewer unawares
and sets the woods alight with memories.
Her spark ignites the grass, the thicket flares; 
a flash of amber, darting through the trees. 
Her tail, a plume of copper-coloured smoke,
the scent of burning catching on the breeze.
Her wistful longing grabs you by the throat
and smears your face with smouldering debris. 
I’ve seen the vixen sleeping on the Fen
on land abandoned by retreating seas.
The sediment erupts. Her fiery den
a legacy that she destroys with ease.  
Nostalgia is a creature built of flame;
you leave this place with nothing but your name. 

Fen Fox

Leanne Moden is a poet, performer, writer & workshop leader, currently living in Nottingham.

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