Siân Thomas
Siân is Poet in Residence for Ashdown Forest in East Sussex. Her pamphlet Ovid's Echo is published by Paekakariki Press and her first full collection Ashdown appeared in March 2020.
Siân also teaches creative writing to adults and in schools in Sussex and Kent and online, and she presents The Poetry Bath on Wildhart Radio.
Siân also teaches creative writing to adults and in schools in Sussex and Kent and online, and she presents The Poetry Bath on Wildhart Radio.
Ashdown conjures up a world where dark and light magic are threaded through everyday existence. A brilliant display of strength, delicate sensibility, and poetic craft.
Susan Costillo Street
Susan Costillo Street
Siân Thomas has, since childhood, inhabited the Weald (the wildwood) so intimately that the lines she writes are charged with its vital energies.
Paul Matthews
Paul Matthews
'Bring your dead, your lost, your day-dreams' urges Siân Thomas's delightful new collection Ashdown as it deftly evokes the spirit of an often overlooked wild place in south-east England. Her delicate yet precise poetry weaves a magical track across her beloved Ashdown Forest - Gills Lap, Hindleap, Kings Standing - a place where, she notes, 'the birds know who I am'. She traces every line of its clay-clogged paths and ochre streams with the poet's meticulous eye for detail; the holly flowers who 'sing in spiders' webstrings' or the deer who watch 'with knot-black eyes' as the South Downs glitter beyond, 'blue as ghosts, a sky away'. At the same time, Thomas summons up her own shared past of memory and reminiscence, whether nights in the pub or family dog walks - those small yet always engaging personal moments forever preserved in the landscape. Ashdown is both essential reading for those who already love the Forest and an enchanting poetic guide for those who are yet to discover this 'run-ragged-but-still-beating heart of Sussex.'
Josephine Balmer
Josephine Balmer
Siân Thomas is sumptuously wonderful
Sarah Miles
Sarah Miles
