Walkers are being invited to come along on Monday 24 April at 9am to help launch a poetry trail in the Pennine village of Marsden in West Yorkshire. The 9.5-mile walk will start at the stone, pictured, commemorating dialect poet Samuel Laycock, who was born in Marsden; and then take in the village’s Mechanics Institute and library, where poets of Write Out Loud Marsden meet each month; along the canal to Tunnel End; on to Pule Hill, where one of Simon Armitage’s Stanza Stones poems is situated; and past a memorial plaque to another dialect poet, Saddleworth’s Ammon Wrigley, up on the Pennine Way at Millstone Edge. The trail also features poems by Ian McMillan and Alison Lock, and you can find out more details about the walk on this blog.

Marsden poet David Coldwell explained: “This began after a conversation between Mark Kelly and I about all the poetry connections in Marsden and the fact that we could make a poetry trail - Mark then went off and did just that.

“Mark and I are now members of Marsden Walkers are Welcome, which is the local arm of a national group aimed at promoting and developing walks in the local area. One of the projects we are now working on is to publish the Poetry Trail as a way-marked walk working in partnership with the team behind the Marsden the Poetry Village initiative.

“We will be leading the walk at 9am on Monday 24 April, meeting at the Samuel Laycock statue in Marsden park. The walk does take in high ground over open moorland so appropriate clothing and boots a must. Well-behaved dogs on leads welcome.”