The gulls are the sound of this town...

Poem for my We Are Marshy Folk project.

'The gulls are the sound of this town, and will continue to be, as land that used to be sea starts reclaiming its territory. Leaking and seeping amid the rains from the chalk and estuary spills, as the water will go where it will.'

Before becoming a later-life artist, I worked in journalism for many years, with words as my creative output. Writing has been put on the back burner for the last few years as I've been taken along with my drive to draw and paint. Writing poetry wasn't something I anticipated doing as part of my We Are Marshy Folk project, but this summer, I'd managed to compost some of my research and was inspired to start playing with poetry to reimagine the town. In this poem I was thinking about constants that can help connect us with the people and places of our lost landscapes, and gulls came to be as one of those things. The idea that for centuries they've wheeled overhead and how their squwaks would have been as familiar to our ancestors as they are to us.

#wearemarshyfolk @createnel