Feb 16, 2022
Last year, I was rummaging in antique and junk shops in a quaint little village near to where my mum- and dad-in-law live.
Outside one of the tiny shops down an old cobbled alley, they had a box filled with all kinds of little treasures that they were almost giving away. Right at the bottom, I found a battered old paperback book. It was water damaged, but I noticed it was by a long-forgotten poet called T C Wilkinson - he had written a collection of poems about my county. I took it home with me, and now I’m sharing a few of those poems with you today.
I did a little bit of research and discovered he was an American poet called Thomas Carlos Wilkinson, from California. I found out he wrote another collection called The Conquest and Other Poems, and his father was born in London - which might explain the connection to East Anglia. I’ll post my finding on Instagram if you want to read a little more about him.
The book itself was published in 1882 in my hometown. It has an eggshell blue cover covered in brown and black water stains, and the binding is falling apart - but it’s hanging in there 140 years later.
And here are a few of my favourite poems.
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