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November
2011:
Launch of posthumous poetry collection Daphne Rock 1927 - 2008 Daphne Rock began to take her writing seriously after attending an Arvon course when she was 50. Waiting for Trumpets was published by Peterloo Poets in 1998 and followed by a London Arts Board Grant in 1999. This was given so that she could pursue writing poetry about geology, mining and the use of the earth's resources. Research in Derbyshire on lead mining, in Blaenafon, South Wales, on the early days of the Industrial Revolution and an exploration of the Isle of Sheppey produced Easy to Miss: Looking for the Lead Miner in Matlock Bath, (Corundum Press, 2001), Circular Walk Through the Heritage Landscape of Blaenafon, (Corundum Press, 2001), and Defoe, The Isle of Sheppey and the Fate of Things, (Corundum Press, 2003). Her poems have been published in many magazines; she was twice a prize-winner in the Lancaster Poetry Competition and was a runner-up in BBC Wildlife Poet of the Year in 1992. She used poetry writing with adult students improving literacy and with Asian students learning English, often tying it in to geology and fossils. Some of the resulting work is displayed in Warwick Museum. Her work is also included in In The Spirit of Wilfred Owen: a New Anthology of Poems, from the Wilfred Owen Association Daphne also had some small successes in theatre, including one production at The Rosemary Branch, followed by Hoxton Hall and the Courtyard Theatre, and 3 rehearsed readings at Battersea Arts Centre, and won a number of short story competitions. According to Ian Fleming, you only live twice: once when you are born, and again when you look death in the face. Fleming attempts to encapsulate a critically human moment for the human condition in general, but unwittingly provides a most suitable epitaph for a very particular South London poet. Mario Petrucci, foreword to A Tenth of Hydrogen Daphne Rock had an enormous zest for life. Her Peterloo collection Waiting for Trumpets, and her several chapbooks (extended sequences which ranged over a wide variety of themes) attest to this. Her knowledge of English language was profound. Although she admired form, and could use it with the best, she was never afraid to push the boundaries, to break away from the conventional. She was a compassionate poet, deeply attached to family and roots, but her interests were broad. She was deeply concerned with social issues, with artistic matters — she was in fact interested in everything life had to offer. And when her illness made it clear that life was ending, she was interested in that too, writing about it with calm clarity. Lyn Moir, Sphinx
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shop
elsewhere
... - "Waiting for Trumpets", Peterloo Poets - "In the Spirit of Wilfred Owen: a New Anthology of Poems", Wilfred Owen Association
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