In 2015, Blake Morrison published Shingle Street, a poetry collection which depicts the desolate eroding landscape of the Suffolk coast.
Inspired by this collection, members of the Hosepipe Band have composed original music to accompany a selection of poems from the collection. A full-length recording of these poems is now available from this website and at live performances in East Anglia during 2023 – see below.
Four sample tracks with the poems are read by Blake with accompaniment by the Hosepipe Band.
• Dunwich (Music by Simon Haines)
• The Ballad Of Shingle Street (Music by Cara Bruns)
• Covehithe (Music by Peter Nice)
• Flotsam (Music by Val Woollard)
This video combines Cara Brun’s music with Blake’s reading extracts from his poem against a backdrop of the strange and background of Shingle Street beach on the Suffolk coast.
PERFORMANCES
2023
• March 1 Blackheath Halls
• March 17 Corn Hall, Diss
• April 21 Two Sisters Arts Centre, Trimley
• May 20 Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh /Tickets
• July 28 Wivenhoe Music
• July 29 Walpole Old Chapel
• August 19 Folk East Festival
• Sept. 30 Laxfield Village Hall
• November 22 Cecil Sharp House, London
2024
• June 22 Westleton Village Hall
• June 29 Felixstowe Book Festival
• October 11 Two Sisters Arts Centre, Trimley
• October 16 Blackheath Halls
Previous performances – 2022
• June 1 Essex Book Festival – The Electric Palace, Harwich
• June 26 Felixstowe Book Festival – at Harvest House, Felixstowe
• July 1 John Mills Theatre, Ipswich
• July 9 Dunwich Museum
• July 28 Colchester Arts Centre
• October 15 Wingfield Barns
The recording is available, in a two-CD digipak format from this website and from the band at the live performances.
CD 1 Blake Morrison reads his poems with musical accompaniment.
CD 2 The music composed and played by The Hosepipe Band
Buy this recording here.
Blake Morrison’s writing
Poetry
• The Dark Glasses
• The Ballad of the Yorkshire Ripper and Other Poems
• Pendle Witches
• Selected Poems
• Shingle Street
• Skin and Blister
• Never the Right Time
Prose works
• And When Did You Last See Your Father?
• Things My Mother Never Told Me
• As If
• The Executor
• The Justification of Johann Gutenberg
• The Last Weekend
• South Of The River
• Two Sisters
More information about Blake Morrison
• His website
• Wikipedia
Print and Kindle versions of Shingle Street are available from Amazon
Contact
for enquiries about bookings or the recording,
• email: simonhaines1@icloud.com
• phone: 07818 417780