“All is lithogenesis” wrote Hugh MacDiarmid in ‘On a Raised Beach’ suggesting that all creation is founded on stone and its geological processes of formation and change. But he also suggests that the germ of imagination begins in, and somehow emulates, these processes. Stratification, fissure, intrusion, ossification, unconformity: these are descriptions of subterranea with intriguing cultural and psychological echoes. Drawing on a long and interesting relationship between poetry and geology, we’re very pleased to bring you three poems this week that explore surprising responses to the worlds beneath our feet from poets Lucy Burnett, Tim Cresswell and Yvonne Reddick and with drawings by Gill Crozier.

Gill Crozier, Quarry Drawing I, graphite

Lucy Burnett is currently Centre Director of Lumb Bank, the Arvon writing centre in West Yorkshire. Her first poetry collection, Leaf Graffiti , was published by Carcanet Press / Northern House in April 2013. She has recently completed her second book – a hybrid novel exploring climate change through the myth of Icarus. A new pamphlet is coming out in the autumn of 2014 with Knives Forks and Spoons Press. Lucy has taught creative writing at the Universities of Salford and Strathclyde and has a PhD from the University of Salford. 

Tim Cresswell is a geographer and poet who has published widely in magazines in the UK and US. His first collection, Soil, was published by Penned in the Margins in 2013. Interviews with him about this collection can be found at the Wild Culture website as well as SnipeLondon.

Yvonne Reddick is a Research Fellow in Modern English and World Literatures at the University of Lancashire exploring literature’s long fascination with landscape, wild creatures and the environment. She has published poetry in magazines and a pamphlet and recently co-edited The Apple Anthology from Nine Arches Press.

Gill Crozier is an artist working in Shropshire on the border between England and Wales. Her interest is in landforms drawn from direct experience, photographs, memory and the written word. She is also a founding member of Borderland Visual Arts. You can see more of Gill’s work here.