Amniotic City – 2nd Edition

by Lucy Furlong

£12.00 + £2.20pp

A City awash with feeling, topography of the Goddess. History in the cracks, a glimpse of green between the earth and sky still exists through an open door, where X marks the spot for a conversation with Her. The River Fleet runs deep under the City of London, carrying the hopes and dreams of the workers scurrying across its surface, held in the belly of a sleeping female, waiting to be reborn.

11 years after its first publication, Lucy Furlong revisits Amniotic City in a series of new explorations, once again poking her nose in the nooks, passageways and liminal spaces therein. She discovers new terrain and new stories in this second edition of her poetry map.

Published on the Autumn Equinox, September 2022

Published by Sampson Low
September 2022
ISBN 978-1-915505-12-5
Design by Mel Hetherington

“Furlong’s poems are recognisably sited; potential liturgies for re-enactment. They are proposals, less bent on cutting passages than on following clues to alignments of desire in patterns immersed in the terrain; an interweaving of intimacy and otherness.”

Phil Smith, The Routledge International Handbook of Walking

Sward {skin of the earth}

by Lucy Furlong

£2.00 + £2.20pp 

sward (n.)

Meaning “sod, turf” developed from the notion of the “skin” of the earth (compare Old Norse grassvörðr, Danish grønsvær “greensward”).
I first came across the word ‘sward’ in the work of Richard Jefferies (1848-1887) the prolific Victorian author and naturalist. This work was inspired partly by Jefferies’ walks in Tolworth and named after his frequent use of ‘sward’ in his writing.

Richard Jefferies lived in Tolworth from 1877 to 1882 (look out for the blue plaque above number 296 Ewell Road). A book of his essays, Nature Near London, describes what he encountered on his long daily walks through Tolworth and the surrounding areas. Some of this we are lucky enough to be able still to see today, but much of it is under threat from urban development.

This walk along the central reservation of the A240 Kingston Road, from the Tolworth Roundabout to the border with Surrey, represented in the form of this chapbook, is for those who see this stretch of grass and trees in the middle of the road as the marker for going on an adventure into the countryside, and as a sign of returning home from our journeys.

Published by Sampson Low Ltd, 2019
ISBN 978-1-912960-31-6
Designed by Mel Hetherington
A6 Size
16 printed pages
Colour
SLB0144

Over the fields

by Lucy Furlong

Poetry in motion.

Published on the Autumn Equinox, September, 2015

Lucy Furlong, her Dad and her son have been purposefully exploring and experiencing anew their local strip of greenbelt, which sits on the borders of Surrey and Greater London, and is bisected by the River Hogsmill.

Known by generations of the Furlong family as ‘Over the Fields’, it was a recognisably rural reminder of Ireland for Lucy’s paternal grandparents, who arrived in Tolworth from their native Wexford, during the Second World War.

For her dad, Nicholas, it was his and his siblings’ ‘second home’, a place for adventures and escapades, when they were growing up in the 1950s and 1960s; and where Lucy and her sister walked with Gran, and spent time with the rest of their family and friends.

This new poetry map moves away from the secret urban pockets of Amniotic City, and rambles into an unexpectedly bucolic seam of suburbia. Over the Fields contains deep topographical enchantments and historical treasures, not least among them the stories and memories of a family.

“…Over the Fields is a poignant and immersive journey with Lucy . . . across time and space.”

Tina Richardson, author of Walking Inside Out
A6 Fold-out poetry map
Design by Mel Hetherington

– Sold out –

Amniotic City

by Lucy Furlong

Poetry in motion.

A City awash with feeling, topography of the Goddess. History in the cracks, a glimpse of green between the earth and sky still exists through an open door, where X marks the spot for a conversation with Her. The River Fleet runs deep under the City carrying the hopes and dreams of the workers scurrying across its surface, held in the belly of a sleeping female, waiting to be reborn.

AMNIOTIC CITY was written on several wanders around the environs of St Paul’s Cathedral and the Temple, between Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice 2011.

The first edition of Amniotic City was featured in The Guardian

– Sold out –