ISBN 978-1-9999718-3-0
272pp
The Pale Ladder collects the majority of Richard Skelton’s poetic writing since 2005, including work first published in 2009 through his own Sustain-Release Private Press, and selections from the Corbel Stone Press catalogue, including writing co-authored with Autumn Richardson – an endeavour which must constitute one of the most significant and sustained small press collaborations of recent years.
‘An extraordinarily rich collection, and one that reveals Skelton to be a major voice in landscape writing.’ (Alice Tarbuck)
Over one hundred poems and texts are reprinted in The Pale Ladder, including work from many long out-of-print and limited edition titles. In gathering these various works together for the first time, it is possible to glimpse the artist's overarching themes – the interconnecting threads – and to plot their development. Key among them is the desire to observe, to bear witness and to record the testimony of the land itself, through its many and varied agencies – its topography and weather, its flora and fauna, its place-names and dialects, and its records and archives.