Sunderland University lecturer publishes third book of poetry

Alistair Robinson, the degree programme leader for journalism at Sunderland University, has launched his third book of poetry inspired by the local landscape, people and places.

Mr Robinson, from South Shields said: “The book includes a sequence of poems, there’s poems about Japan, bird watchers, a scrapbook that I found at the South Shields market, it’s about unusual colourful stories based on people or places.

"The title comes from my fascination with random vegetation like plants and weeds that grow near gutters and by roads.

"This vegetation has grown by chance across wastelands and now-a-days people just walk past them without caring.

"These things we ignore meant something to someone before now, these plants have been carefully observed, examined and given wonderful names by people.

"We can be incurious as the wind, we are blind as rain.”

The book, called AS Blind As Rain and published by Red Squirrel Press, is the lecturer’s third collection of poetry after his first volume, South of Souter, was published as a chapbook in 2003 and second full-length collection, Stereograms of the Dead, was launched in 2009.

He continues: “Some poems are inspired by South Shields locations, like the coastline and beaches.

"There is even one about the ‘Tyneside type’ which is a ridiculous regional stereotype, there is an huge element of humour in the book.”

The lecturer also won the Northern Promise Award for his poetry in 2004 from New Writing North. The book is now available from redsquirrelpress.com

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