Episode two of the Working Class Literature podcast about Joseph Skipsey, a poet and coal miner from the North East of England. After entering the mines as a child, he would grow up to become a nationally-renowned poet, respected by some of the most famous artists of the nineteenth century. In this episode, we speak to researcher Dr Gordon Tait and musician Chris Harrison, both of whom have been doing lots of work around Skipsey’s life and poetry.
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For more information on Skipsey, check out Chris' website, which also has more on Chris' music based around Skipsey's poetry: http://www.chrisharrisonmusic.org/musical-activities/carols-from-the-coalfields
Also check out Gordon's excellent article, 'Joseph Skipsey, the "peasant poet", and an unpublished letter from W. B. Yeats': https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/440536/joseph-skipsey-the-peasant-poet-and-an-unpublished-letter-from-w-b-yeats
And the Minor Victorian Writers website has a great collection of Skipsey’s poems, a biography, and the introductory essays which Skipsey wrote as part of edited collections on William Blake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Burns and Percy Bysshe Shelley, which were produced in order to make poetry accessible to the working class.