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William Martin (1925-2010) was a poet of extraordinary vision and musicality. Thoroughly grounded in his native North-East England, its pit communities and industry, his song-like poems nevertheless traverse a vast geographical and historical landscape ranging from deep Celtic and Anglo-Saxon sources to the thought and myths of India, via a passionate political engagement that never limits song to mere rhetoric. He also drew on childrens games, ballads and street songs in poems showing both political anger and a wider concern for a society losing its common ground, its rituals and rites of passage.
William Martin (1925-2010) was a poet of extraordinary vision and musicality. Thoroughly grounded in his native North-East England, its pit communities and industry, his song-like poems nevertheless traverse a vast geographical and historical landscape ranging from deep Celtic and Anglo-Saxon sources to the thought and myths of India, via a passionate political engagement that never limits song to mere rhetoric. He also drew on childrens games, ballads and street songs in poems showing both political anger and a wider concern for a society losing its common ground, its rituals and rites of passage.