Amble, for those that don’t know it, is a small town on Northumberland’s North Sea coast. There are parts of it that have seen better days. But there are other parts, including some colourful flats by the marina that often pop up on episodes of ITV's Vera, that point to this expanding town’s potential.

This potential is also reflected in Amble’s lively arts scene. At the weekend local poet Ali Rowland launched Rooted, her booklet of poems based partly on artworks at an exhibition earlier this year at Dovecote Street Arts centre in the town.

In her introduction to the booklet she says: “Northumberland means a lot to me, it has become a sanctuary and a home, even though it is not where I was born. I started to think about what being ‘rooted’ really meant … To be rooted to a place, to feel that this place is truly a part of you, and you a part of it, you need three things: peace, love, and connection.”

This particular connection to Dovecote Arts came when co-founders and Amble-based artists Luke McTaggart and Jim Donnelly asked Ali to become their exhibition’s poet-in-residence. She produced 20 poems, and Luke said at the launch: “It was Jim’s idea to make a booklet, and to rope Ali in. She went above and beyond.”

One of her poems, ‘Your Beach Visit Itinerary’, relates to artist Katherine Renton’s work, ‘Beadnell Carpark, All day £8.50’ (oil on board), a picture of an uncharacteristically empty car park. Ali’s poem refers to the parking problems at Beadnell as the seaside village grows in popularity, and the need to arrive early, and to pay online: “You may need to create an account. Now, see the early sun glistening on the tarmac.”

At the launch she said: “The big change in the north-east is people, the area opening up to mass tourism. The BBC seems to have discovered Northumberland. Everyone wants a piece of it, and why not, because it’s a beautiful place. People want to live here … but local people see issues of ‘otherness’ … my poems address that. I think some of the artworks reflect that, too.”

But in the introduction to the booklet she adds: “I believe that sharing safety and peace can make you feel safer and more secure yourself.” A number of poems relate to welcoming refugees and asylum seekers, while others respond to the climate crisis.

‘Visitors Look for Lynemouth Castle’ plays with the idea that while Northumberland is rich in castles, Lynemouth itself only has a concrete power plant that can nevertheless be mistaken for some kind of historic fortification in an illusory mist, or haar, that often blurs the coastline’s horizon:

 

     That anorexic tower is a chimney,

     and the razor wire and the automatic parking arms are imitating

     moat and drawbridge.

 

     No, we’ll move on, nothing to see here but

     The past, the present, and the future.   

 

This arresting poem, that spies beauty in the ugliness of industry, stands alongside Ted Taylor’s acrylic on canvas ‘Towards Lynemouth’.

At the launch Ali told how she was somewhat impeded just before the exhibition by breaking one foot and spraining the other ankle while walking her dog on a nearby beach. She explained her writing process by saying: “I didn’t want to produce poems that were just reproductions of the pictures. I tend to write in stories – I hang in there, waiting for the story to come.”

Dovecote Street Arts organises a monthly Crits Night, where artists come and talk about their work in a supportive atmosphere. Writers and film-makers can often be found there, too.  

The booklet Rooted is a beautifully glossy production by Ashington publisher Maplestreet Press, containing both Ali’s poems and reproductions of a number of the exhibition artworks, too. The project has been supported by Northumberland Coast National Landscape, and the booklet is, remarkably, free.

 

Poet Ali Rowland with artist and Dovecote Street Arts co-founder Luke McTaggart