Harvest

By Linda Appleby

Harvest was forged in an emotional melting-pot. The author was walking one morning in the grounds of Fulbourn Psychiatric Hospital near Cambridge, having been held under a section of the Mental Health Act. This meant that she could not leave the hospital grounds. But the grounds were extensive and from the edge of the gardens she could see Fulbourn windmill standing on the brow of Fulbourn Hill. She reached deeply inside herself and came up with a poem which, though she had always written, came from a place more serious and resonant than ever before.
Gradually, other poems followed, detailing her interaction with the mental health system and the consoling connection she felt with the natural world. On her release, she finished the collection: songs, sonnets, hymns and ballads, a readable variety of responses to harsh experience.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Jan 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9781398419278

Linda Appleby

Linda Appleby is a native of Cambridge with Welsh roots. She was educated at The Perse School, Cambridge, where she was awarded both 6th Form prizes for English Literature and went on to gain a top Philosophy first of her year at Somerville College, Oxford. She taught English at North Warwickshire College and ran the college’s language policy. Retiring on the diagnosis of a psychotic illness, she has devoted herself to her writing. She has written two novels and three poetry collections, as well as short stories and articles. Linda was married to Professor John Appleby. They have two sons.

Book preview

Who Am I?

Who or what am I?

I am a Cambridge person

I am a female Cambridge person

Or a Cambridge female Welsh person

I am a mother and Welsh, female Cambridge person

I am a divorced mother and Welsh f c p

I am a small retired teacher, d m and f c p

I am a short-sighted, small retired t d m and w f c p

I am a religious s-s s t (retired) d m and w f c p

I am a pacifist, religious, short-sighted, small retired teacher, divorced mother and Welsh, female Cambridge person.

May I introduce myself?

I am a storm of feelings

I am a stalking tigress marking out the forest for her cubs

I am a lifelong longing for harmony

I am the music of the stars

I am the changing wind and the burning sun

And the tears of children

And the fears of fragile elders

I am the hope

I am the food

I am the milk

Between Sharon and Hamas

The Independent, May 21

‘We have lost our livelihood

We have lost our orange-gold

Each tree is like my baby’

Oranges scattered among uprooted trees

A citrus grove razed to destroy cover

A squat Palestinian woman –

Universal babushka –

Crouches on the ground

Collecting one by one the spilt fruit

– A universal female

Retrieving some of her wealth

Knowing that life goes on

After the Deluge, Crows

Pompous, strutting crows on a corduroy hill

A pair in an expanse of field

Moving like barristers

Away from each other and back

Wings behind backs, totally in black

Pulling worms from the soil

Like evil survivors of a harvest wipe-out

Two post-nuclear crows, a beige field, a submissive, white sky

Princess

I remember