Pickard - Hoyoot: Collected Poems and Songs

The poems and songs in hoyoot are from the books listed below: High on the Walls (poetry), Fulcrum Press, London, UK, 1967 The Order of Chance (poetry), Fulcrum Press, London, UK, 1971 Dancing Under Fire, Middle Earth Books, Philadelphia, USA, 1973 Custom and Exile (poetry), Allison and Busby, London, UK, 1985 Jarrow March, Allison and Busby, London, UK, 1981 OK Tree, Pig Press, Durham, UK, 1980 Hero Dust (new and selected poems), Allison and Busby, London, UK, 1979 Tiepin Eros: New and Selected Poems, Bloodaxe, Newcastle, UK, 1994 Fuckwind (poems and songs), etruscan books, Buckfastleigh, UK, 1999 Hole in the Wall (new and selected poems), Flood Editions, Chicago, USA, 2002 Tyne Texts (with Bill Griffiths), Amara Imprint, Seaham, UK, 2004 The Dark Months of May, Flood Editions, Chicago, USA, 2004 Ballad of Jamie Allan, Flood Editions, Chicago, USA, 2008 They dont always appear in the same order as they did in their original volumes, leaning more to mood and theme than to a strict chronological sequence although they all adhere to their sections. A few lines have been re-written. Books as Ballast was taken from More Pricks than Prizes, Pressed Wafer, Boston, USA. My thanks go to the editors and broadcasters who first published these poems in magazines and to the publishers who made such handsome books for them. Over the last two decades I have been lucky with editors and publishers particularly Devin Johnston and Flood Editions who gave me encouragement, patience and a place to be. Devin also spent time on this book, as did my wife Gill, Stephen Regan and Alex Niven, for which I thank them the hours spent.

Acknowledgements for Ballad of Jamie Allan This version of the book has been added to since the Flood Edition. It is an ongoing project. In researching the life of James Allan, I consulted the following archives: the Newcastle Central Library, local collection, for eighteenth-century newspapers; the National Archives, Kew, for criminal depositions, case papers, indictments, and desertion records (ASSI 45/5/2/1011, 45/33/1/1ac; DURH 17/43; WP 4/594596). The Scott letter is from The Letters of Sir Walter Scott, ed. H.J.C. Grierson (London: Constable & Co.

Ltd, 1933), 4: 22021. John Harle has issued a studio recording of Ballad of Jamie Allan [Harle CD006] with the original performers: Omar Ebrahim, Balladeer; Sarah Jane Morris, Balladeer; Kathryn Tickell, Northumbrian Piper; Bill Patterson, Narrator; the Northern Sinfonia with Neil MacColl (guitar) and Steve Lodder (keyboards). It was released by www.harlerecords.com and distributed by www.selectmusic.co.uk. The opera is available for performance with permission from Chester music: www.chesternovello.com. We called Ballad of Jamie Allan a folk-opera, although that label may be too classical for the folk world and too folky for the classical world. But like the subject of the story, it strides the borders where Im always happy to pitch a tent.

A number of musician friends have engaged with me at various stages of this ongoing project and I would like to thank them: Peter Kirtley and Liane Carroll, who recorded Away Boys Away; Paul McCartney, who gave the use of his studio and engineers for the occasion and who introduced me to John Harle; Ben Murray, who was a steadying friend during the writing and reeling of Hawthorn and recorded his own version of it with Rosie Doonan along with Dreaming Annie on Mill Lane [Silvertop CD001]. The most recent version of a song from Ballad of Jamie Allan is The River is Dark, by Ben Murray, on the Tarras CD Warn the Waters: www.tarrasmusic.com. Tarras, with whom I have proudly worked during my years in the hills, played at our wedding in the Hartside Caf. The best hoyoot from any wedding Ive been to keeping the dance of poem and music tight in the windy Border night. I rambled a lot to Annie Lennox who listened patiently and recalled some of the Border Ballads that lived in her memory commenting, to die for, literally. I am grateful to the late Raphael Samuels of Ruskin College who, during tutorials in the back of taxis, tried to show me how to read history.

I would like to thank friends and colleagues who have opened the wicket gate and pointed to the delectable mountains: the historians Bruce Jackson, Gwenda Morgan, Peter Rushton and William Lancaster. Thanks also to: The Sage Gateshead and Folkworks, which commissioned the opera, and Simon Clugston, who directed it; the editors of Square One and Chicago Review, where some of this work was first published; Bill Corbett, who published the song Ballad of Jamie Allan as a broadside; Nicholas Johnson of Etruscan Press, for publishing an earlier version of Away Boys Away as The Ballad of Jamie Allan in Fuckwind; Chris Sutcliffe for filming the premiere of the opera so deftly at extremely short notice; Bobby Aitken for research assistance; Ian Henderson for keeping the car on the road and lifting the roak; Bill Griffiths, who helped me nail a word. Other friends have been invaluable in their ways: Judith Ann Murphy; Anne Moore at Morpeth Chantry & Bagpipe Museum; my agents Tracey Elliston and Valli Dakshinamurthi at Judy Daish Associates Ltd; and finally many thanks to Devin Johnston and Michael OLeary of Flood Editions for giving me a second bite at the cherry.

hoy oot north. dial. n. one rejected, cast out, expelled, used-up, disposed of, redundant, evicted 2. coins thrown to guttersnipes from a wedding car v. 1. to make redundant 2. to throw coins from a bridal car 3. to expel revellers 1
19681978