AN AUTHOR from Worcester who was the county's poet laureate has a new collection of work being published.

Lore: Flowers, Folklore, and Footnotes is the collection that bloomed from Dr Charley Barnes’ year as Worcestershire Poet Laureate, 2019-2020.

During her time in the role, Charley borrowed from folkloric stories around the county to inform her writing, while also using tales of plantlore and flowerlore, to look at the histories of names, medicines and more. For every poem that holds a story, Charley has marked it with a footnote to enrich readers’ experiences by sharing her own inspiration.

Lore will be published on February 14, by Black Pear Press, and Charley plans to hold a digital launch (via Zoom) to mark the occasion.

Endorsers have said:

“In these pages, Barnes has shouted Boo at me, and I am mute. Well, almost. These poems have the tender touch of Naruder’s Love Songs and the bristling brutal barb of Anne Sexton. In Lore, she guides us through a veritable Pre-Raphaelite landscape - as deadly and murky as it is full of life-giving sensuality. Ephemeral folktales and folklore are grounded by the historical and the place-specific, both aspects weaved together with deft precision. These poems come in the form of howling riptides and gentle splashes” R. M. Francis

“From death, Charley gives us resurrection. In each plant, we are introduced to new qualities of human nature, and how the two may intertwine. This is oral storytelling for the modern age, where plants hold an old kind of magic, which might just teach us something about ourselves and our relationships with others. Here, you will also find a sense of play and fun: “with every mouthful, we imagined we were bears.” as Charley encourages us to indulge in nostalgia.” Isabelle Kenyon

“Lore is a lush journey into the place where nature intersects with humanity and where folklore becomes personal lore. These poems are precise without being sparse and lush without feeling overgrown. Each time I turn the page I do not know if I will be greeted with a healing piece of hedgewitchery, a handful of natural poison or lore that stretches into our modern day practices and opens up new vistas. To read Lore is to step into a forest with Dr. Charley Barnes as your guide and gather a supply of stunning knowledge and emotion that will stay with you long after the last poem ends.” Juliette van der Molen

Charley is well known for her fiction, publishing crime novels as C.S. Barnes. Writing, performing and hosting spoken word events as Charley Barnes, she is also very active in the West Midlands poetry scene. She has a BA (Hons) in English & English Language, and a masters (Distinction) and doctorate in Creative Writing. She lectures in Creative Writing at a number of West Midlands universities.