A journey through North Yorkshire in poems and film, written by Paul Mills in collaboration with Yorkshire Film Archive.
“A wonderfully stirring, thoughtful, and ultimately celebratory body of work that spins out from specific histories into all our families, all our lives.”
Ian McMillan
from You Should’ve Seen Us
In old film on parade in funny clothes
you think we dressed up for you?
so you could say, Takes me back.
The old days. No!
It was just us being who we were.
That`s how you should`ve seen us.
Instead, we look poor and grimy –
old bricks in old walls, costumes and junk.
Not how it seemed to us, in the moment,
in the skin of the present
with its random shout,
You should`ve seen us!
Paul Mills was born in 1948. He was Gregory Fellow in Poetry at Leeds University 1978-80, and taught literature and creative writing at York St John University. He has had three previous collections from Carcanet. Two of his plays have been performed, at the National Theatre and West Yorkshire Playhouse. He is the author of The Routledge Creative Writing Coursebook. Paul was the overall winner of the 1999 Book and Pamphlet Competition.