A cottage below the woods

The woods are a vertical wall of old mixed trees, straight, twisted, fallen. There's a stream below. In summer the stream dries to a path through a tunnel smelling of willows and nettles, in winter it must be crossed carefully as it's a place to drown.
Walk along the bottom edge of this green wall to a cottage with a gate, one door and four windows. It's reached only by a steep path out of the woods that carries the buried taste of aniseed and hidden water.
As a child I was fascinated by this cottage. I lived by the stream between the ages of eight and nineteen. My house was new, one of many arranged in a cul de sac on an old nursery. I played on building sites after we moved in. At end of the road is a scout hut, a couple more cottages and bus stop.
The cottage is part of my life on foot, seen from the stream bed on summer days through grasses, cow parsley, weeping willows, on the way to pine woods. Here I place the grandmother I never knew and my mother never knew. There's one photo of her, blown up from a small copy mum had. Friends ask if it's me.

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Interview with poet Jackie Wills

Six poetry collections by Jackie Wills since 1995 Powder Tower, Party, Fever Tree, Commandments, Woman's Head as Jug, A Friable Earth Poet Jackie Wills turned 70 last month, so it seems a perfect time to talk to her about her writing. I met Wills when she was looking after sheep in Mallorca and I was walking on a centuries old path through the land. She admired my hat. There are decades between us but we stayed in touch and as I read her work I appreciated its focus on womens' lives, the earth and felt the empathy her poems exude. Her work has been described as irreverent, bewitching, compassionate and surreal. Q: Jackie, it's great to reconnect. You've published six books and a pamphlet. Do you have a favourite? A: Each time a title comes off the press it's a favourite because most of them, especially the later ones, come from years of writing, thinking, discarding and editing. What I can say is that each book is delivered by a different era in my life - my first m...

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Three women make a market

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