A TILSTON poet has opened her new collection with an ode to her much-loved community.
It has been some years since creative writing teacher Eleanor Cooke published her last full collection, Secret Files. That book sparked praise and protest in equal measure and sold out in weeks.
She has now published her new collection, The Return.
Eleanor was asked to put this collection together a fortnight before she was diagnosed with cancer.
She said: “After the diagnosis, the need to get the collection together was a fantastic boost. There was no time to worry about the cancer. Any time I felt well enough, I got straight on with the book.”
Eleanor is now recovering from treatment and is hoping this new collection will do as well as the last.
It opens with a poem about her return to Tilston.
She said: “I came back to the village three years ago after an absence of almost 20 years.”
She said her poetry focuses on the countryside: “Much contemporary poetry alienates the reader, perhaps because it’s left behind its roots in the English countryside. Not everyone wants to read about the city.”
