British Poet Carol Rumens recently featured John Clare’s Clock O Clay

as her poem of the week in the Guardian

In the cowslips peeps I lye
Hidden from the buzzing fly
While green grass beneath me lies
Pearled wi’ dew like fishes eyes
Here I lye a Clock a clay
Waiting for the time o’day…

While grassy forests quake surprise
And the wild wind sobs and sighs
My gold home rocks as like to fall
On its pillars green and tall
When the pattering rain drives bye
Clock a Clay keeps warm and dry

Day by day and night by night
All the week I hide from sight
In the cowslips peeps I lye
In rain and dew still warm and dry
Day and night and night and day
Red black spotted clock a clay

My home it shakes in wind and showers
Pale green pillar top’t wi’ flowers
Bending at the wild wind’s breath
Till I touch the grass beneath
Here still I live lone clock a clay
Watching for the time of day

John Clare has become somewhat of a theme running through our work and lives here at Pink Rooster. As you may know, we have our main base within the grounds of St Andrew’s Hospital in Northampton, where John Clare spent the remaining years of his life from 1841 to 1862 ((known then as Northampton General Lunatic Asylum) and where he wrote many of his poems.

Clare was an English poet. The son of a farm labourer, he became known for his celebrations of the English countryside and sorrows at its disruption. His work underwent major re-evaluation in the late 20th century; he is now often seen as a major 19th-century poet.

July 2023 celebrated 230 years since the birth of Clare on 13 July 1793 at Helpston in Northamptonshire.

During 2021, when Covid and lockdowns still affected every part of our daily lives, with the inevitable impact on mental health and social isolation, Pink Rooster was proud to be a partner with Nenescape Landscape Partnership working alongside Folk Musician Jon Boden (of Bellowhead fame).

The project ‘ Extracts of a Changing Landscape’ entailed us recruiting a number of Northamptonshire community choirs, based within the Nene Valley, and taking extracts from John Clare’s poems and putting them to music.

Our role with Jon Boden and Nenescape helped to facilitate and coordinate the project as it moved forward, with a focus on the music technology to make the outputs accessible to all.

Working remotely due to lockdown restrictions, Jon took each individual choir members vocal recordings and composed the final pieces. You can hear the results for Clock O Clay by clicking on the following link where Northampton High School Community Choir perform their version, composed and arranged by Jon Boden.

https://youtu.be/xs4CwMAdUzo

You can read the article by Carol Rumens by following this link:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2022/jul/04/poem-of-the-week-clock-a-clay-by-john-clare

You can read more about Extracts of a Changing Landscape project here:  https://nenescape.org/projects-1/extracts