Synopsis
Black Fens Viral began in summer 2020 when I was recovering from Covid. Lockdown was lifting and I was able to travel to Norfolk on the slow train which goes through the Black Fens of East Anglia. This flat, almost hedgeless and treeless, agricultural landscape of black peat was once marshland, before the drainage of the fens. The first sluice was created by the Dutch engineer Cornelius Vermuyden in 1642 to limit the tidal flow up the Great Ouse, but he did not realise that the peat would shrink after it dried out and be blown away by the wind. We now know that it also adds to global warming through leaking carbon dioxide and means the risk of flooding is more acute than ever.
I often write about landscapes I love, such as Exmoor or the north Norfolk coast, protected by national parks and nature reserves, but I needed to write about this damaged landscape, where plants are exploited and biodiversity ignored. It corresponded to the damage caused by the pandemic, a result of human incursions into wild places. Writing about the Black Fens also brought back memories of my childhood in Lincolnshire. Depopulated by mechanised agriculture, it was a lonely landscape, as well as an ecological disaster. (Frances Presley)
"On the face of it, these rectangular prose-poem paragraphs seem to be 'one perfect black strip' after another, not unlike the fens themselves, but on closer inspection they too have been damaged, infected by a language virus. Both moving and funny, and operating as a kind of travel journal through the East Anglian flatlands after Covid, they are also weirdly iterative and glitchy, flickering between memorial and curative to historic ecological and economic harm - 'the illth in tilth'." -Jeff Hilson
"I have been watching Black Fens Viral unfold with growing excitement as snippets have been revealed to me via message cards or more elaborate constructs of esoteric intensity. Now the completed work has been realised in this enthralling collection to add to Presley's already impressive oeuvre.
Deploying the Markov text generator with a lightness of touch, words and sentences fragment, repeat and shudder as if mimicking the shivers and visual disturbances of viral fever enacted on both body and landscape. Intrusive memories of past trauma and grief flit in and out like wounded birds whilst tannoy messages on rural trains warn that COVID 19 is not the only threat we face. This monochromatic world is depicted largely in black and white or grayscale with only rare dashes of colour provided by a glimpse of blue sky, the blue of a dragonfly or the pink blush from an unseen sun." -Geraldine Monk
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author
Frances Presley was born in Derbyshire, grew up in Lincolnshire and Somerset, and lives in London. Her publications include Lines of Sight (Shearsman, 2009) which focused on Exmoor's Neolithic stone sites, and a collaboration with visual poet Tilla Brading, Stone Settings (Odyssey, 2010). An Alphabet for Alina, with artist Peterjon Skelt, exploits the lexical and visual possibilities of an alphabet for girls (Five Seasons, 2012). Halse for hazel (Shearsman, 2014) explored marginal trees and languages, and continued in Sallow, (Leafe, 2016), with images by Irma Irsara. It received an Arts council award. Ada Unseen (Shearsman, 2019) is about the life and work of Ada Lovelace, mathematician and computer visionary, who lived on Exmoor, and was also a collaboration with visual poet Tilla Brading, ADADADA (Odyssey, 2022). Presley's Collected Poems 1973-2020 were published in two volumes by Shearsman in 2022. Her latest project, Black Fens Viral began on a slow train through East Anglia's flat, agricultural, landscape of black peat, once marshland. 'Viral' refers both to Covid and to a text generator known as the Markov Chain, with its strange rearrangement of text which resembles a viral assault. The first poem was a Literary Pocket Book (2021) by Steven Hitchins, and the entire sequence was published in 2025 by Shearsman. She has written many essays and reviews, especially on innovative British women poets. Her work is in anthologies including Infinite Difference (2010), Ground Aslant: radical landscape poetry (2011), Out of Everywhere2 (2015), Fractured Ecologies (2020), Arcadian Rustbelt (2025).
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
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Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. Black Fens Viral began in summer 2020 when I was recovering from Covid. Lockdown was lifting and I was able to travel to Norfolk on the slow train which goes through the Black Fens of East Anglia. This flat, almost hedgeless and treeless, agricultural landscape of black peat was once marshland, before the drainage of the fens. The first sluice was created by the Dutch engineer Cornelius Vermuyden in 1642 to limit the tidal flow up the Great Ouse, but he did not realise that the peat would shrink after it dried out and be blown away by the wind. We now know that it also adds to global warming through leaking carbon dioxide and means the risk of flooding is more acute than ever. I often write about landscapes I love, such as Exmoor or the north Norfolk coast, protected by national parks and nature reserves, but I needed to write about this damaged landscape, where plants are exploited and biodiversity ignored. It corresponded to the damage caused by the pandemic, a result of human incursions into wild places. Writing about the Black Fens also brought back memories of my childhood in Lincolnshire. Depopulated by mechanised agriculture, it was a lonely landscape, as well as an ecological disaster. (Frances Presley)"On the face of it, these rectangular prose-poem paragraphs seem to be 'one perfect black strip' after another, not unlike the fens themselves, but on closer inspection they too have been damaged, infected by a language virus. Both moving and funny, and operating as a kind of travel journal through the East Anglian flatlands after Covid, they are also weirdly iterative and glitchy, flickering between memorial and curative to historic ecological and economic harm - 'the illth in tilth'." -Jeff Hilson "I have been watching Black Fens Viral unfold with growing excitement as snippets have been revealed to me via message cards or more elaborate constructs of esoteric intensity. Now the completed work has been realised in this enthralling collection to add to Presley's already impressive oeuvre. Deploying the Markov text generator with a lightness of touch, words and sentences fragment, repeat and shudder as if mimicking the shivers and visual disturbances of viral fever enacted on both body and landscape. Intrusive memories of past trauma and grief flit in and out like wounded birds whilst tannoy messages on rural trains warn that COVID 19 is not the only threat we face. This monochromatic world is depicted largely in black and white or grayscale with only rare dashes of colour provided by a glimpse of blue sky, the blue of a dragonfly or the pink blush from an unseen sun." -Geraldine Monk I often write about landscapes I love, such as Exmoor or the north Norfolk coast, but I needed to write about this damaged landscape, the Black Fens of East Anglia, where plants are exploited and biodiversity ignored. (Frances Presley) This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9781848619883
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Paperback. Condition: New. Black Fens Viral began in summer 2020 when I was recovering from Covid. Lockdown was lifting and I was able to travel to Norfolk on the slow train which goes through the Black Fens of East Anglia. This flat, almost hedgeless and treeless, agricultural landscape of black peat was once marshland, before the drainage of the fens. The first sluice was created by the Dutch engineer Cornelius Vermuyden in 1642 to limit the tidal flow up the Great Ouse, but he did not realise that the peat would shrink after it dried out and be blown away by the wind. We now know that it also adds to global warming through leaking carbon dioxide and means the risk of flooding is more acute than ever. I often write about landscapes I love, such as Exmoor or the north Norfolk coast, protected by national parks and nature reserves, but I needed to write about this damaged landscape, where plants are exploited and biodiversity ignored. It corresponded to the damage caused by the pandemic, a result of human incursions into wild places. Writing about the Black Fens also brought back memories of my childhood in Lincolnshire. Depopulated by mechanised agriculture, it was a lonely landscape, as well as an ecological disaster. (Frances Presley)"On the face of it, these rectangular prose-poem paragraphs seem to be 'one perfect black strip' after another, not unlike the fens themselves, but on closer inspection they too have been damaged, infected by a language virus. Both moving and funny, and operating as a kind of travel journal through the East Anglian flatlands after Covid, they are also weirdly iterative and glitchy, flickering between memorial and curative to historic ecological and economic harm - 'the illth in tilth'." -Jeff Hilson "I have been watching Black Fens Viral unfold with growing excitement as snippets have been revealed to me via message cards or more elaborate constructs of esoteric intensity. Now the completed work has been realised in this enthralling collection to add to Presley's already impressive oeuvre. Deploying the Markov text generator with a lightness of touch, words and sentences fragment, repeat and shudder as if mimicking the shivers and visual disturbances of viral fever enacted on both body and landscape. Intrusive memories of past trauma and grief flit in and out like wounded birds whilst tannoy messages on rural trains warn that COVID 19 is not the only threat we face. This monochromatic world is depicted largely in black and white or grayscale with only rare dashes of colour provided by a glimpse of blue sky, the blue of a dragonfly or the pink blush from an unseen sun." -Geraldine Monk. Seller Inventory # LU-9781848619883
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Paperback. Condition: New. Black Fens Viral began in summer 2020 when I was recovering from Covid. Lockdown was lifting and I was able to travel to Norfolk on the slow train which goes through the Black Fens of East Anglia. This flat, almost hedgeless and treeless, agricultural landscape of black peat was once marshland, before the drainage of the fens. The first sluice was created by the Dutch engineer Cornelius Vermuyden in 1642 to limit the tidal flow up the Great Ouse, but he did not realise that the peat would shrink after it dried out and be blown away by the wind. We now know that it also adds to global warming through leaking carbon dioxide and means the risk of flooding is more acute than ever. I often write about landscapes I love, such as Exmoor or the north Norfolk coast, protected by national parks and nature reserves, but I needed to write about this damaged landscape, where plants are exploited and biodiversity ignored. It corresponded to the damage caused by the pandemic, a result of human incursions into wild places. Writing about the Black Fens also brought back memories of my childhood in Lincolnshire. Depopulated by mechanised agriculture, it was a lonely landscape, as well as an ecological disaster. (Frances Presley)"On the face of it, these rectangular prose-poem paragraphs seem to be 'one perfect black strip' after another, not unlike the fens themselves, but on closer inspection they too have been damaged, infected by a language virus. Both moving and funny, and operating as a kind of travel journal through the East Anglian flatlands after Covid, they are also weirdly iterative and glitchy, flickering between memorial and curative to historic ecological and economic harm - 'the illth in tilth'." -Jeff Hilson "I have been watching Black Fens Viral unfold with growing excitement as snippets have been revealed to me via message cards or more elaborate constructs of esoteric intensity. Now the completed work has been realised in this enthralling collection to add to Presley's already impressive oeuvre. Deploying the Markov text generator with a lightness of touch, words and sentences fragment, repeat and shudder as if mimicking the shivers and visual disturbances of viral fever enacted on both body and landscape. Intrusive memories of past trauma and grief flit in and out like wounded birds whilst tannoy messages on rural trains warn that COVID 19 is not the only threat we face. This monochromatic world is depicted largely in black and white or grayscale with only rare dashes of colour provided by a glimpse of blue sky, the blue of a dragonfly or the pink blush from an unseen sun." -Geraldine Monk. Seller Inventory # LU-9781848619883
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