Skip to product information
1 of 2

My Store

UNDER THE MERCY (P/B) by Pete Hollingsworth

UNDER THE MERCY (P/B) by Pete Hollingsworth

Regular price £8.99 GBP
Regular price Sale price £8.99 GBP
Sale Sold out
Taxes included.

Paperback - 106 pp.
29 b/w illustrations

Peter's apparent innocent and simple poems are deceptive in the way they probe our personal spirituality and the human condition - to enjoy them to the full we must constantly pause and reflect as we read them.

In Under the Mercy, Peter's poetic style, combined with his preferred use of rhyming couplets, is reminiscent of the English spiritual poets of past centuries. The imagery evoked in his words is inspired both by geographical landscape and the metaphorical landscape of an Anglican spirituality - it is a very English poetry.

Poems within Under the Mercy such as 'The Teme', 'Figures on the Foreshore' or 'Stroudwater Valleys' are amongst those which tell of the personal landscapes that have filled his life, a life now rooted in the southern Welsh Marches. His observations and reflections speak to the listening soul.

Peter was born in the Stroudwater valley, becoming an engineering apprentice in a Cotswold village in the 1960s, knowing “little of literature and even less of poetry”. In those days, motor cycles preoccupied his energies – along with other pursuits not uncommon among the young!

He developed his engineering knowledge and (following an overland journey to India in company of some two-hundred university students), he gained a place at teachers training college and duly began to teach in a Birmingham comprehensive. \n

Meeting Gill, his wife and moving to lecture in Further Education in Hereford, followed – along with their children, Claire, Gareth, and Paul – proved even more formative. Now retired, Pete remains active, kayaking, playing tennis, and singing and playing guitar at local folk music sessions. For decades, he and Gill have been active in the local church. Many of the poems in this volume were inspired by their requent travels around both the UK and abroad in their small motorhome. 

View full details