{"id":338203,"date":"2025-08-12T10:31:18","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T10:31:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/338203\/"},"modified":"2025-08-12T10:31:18","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T10:31:18","slug":"jill-angood-people-who-know-that-landscape-really-recognised-it-she-captured-its-flavour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/338203\/","title":{"rendered":"Jill Angood – “People who know that landscape really recognised it \u2013 she captured its flavour”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"A<\/p>\n

Jill Angood and Chris Pyke.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tChris Pyke.<\/p>\n

Poetry has become a big part of how I understand the world, a place to process, to listen, to give shape to what I\u2019m feeling. When I first joined a poetry club at the Rutland Arms in 2018, I didn\u2019t expect that it would open up creative friendships, or that it would become a way to navigate grief.<\/p>\n

One of those friendships was with Chris Pyke and his partner, Jill Angood. Chris and I recently took a walk across Wadsley Common and talked about creativity, love, loss and how compiling Jill\u2019s poems into a published pamphlet after her death became a deeply human act of remembrance. \u201cCreativity doesn\u2019t fix grief,\u201d Chris said. \u201cBut it can shape it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Jill<\/p>\n

Jill had been writing poetry for decades, long before she
\nand Chris met in 1977. Her writing was rooted in the Fens in the east,
\nparticularly the Isle of Ely, where she grew up. That watery, flat
\nlandscape was central to many of her poems.<\/p>\n

\tFrom our front window mostly fields
\nruled by dykes and ditches
\nlines of poplars piercing the big sky
\nlessons in perspective.<\/p>\n

Jill was a regular at writing groups including Heeley Women
\nWriters, a long-running workshop led by Nell Farrell. Before she died,
\nshe had begun work on a pamphlet with help from Suzanna Evans at the
\nPoetry Business, but it had been paused during a house move. \u201cShe left behind a huge body of writing,\u201d Chris told
\nme. \u201cIt was all in one place. [Local poet] Sally Goldsmith and I decided we\u2019d like to
\n finish the pamphlet she\u2019d started.\u201d<\/p>\n

With support from Nell and Suzanna, they carefully edited the poems, added a few more recent ones, and published The Water is Waiting this spring. The title is taken from the opening poem. \u201cWe launched it at the Samuel Worth Chapel at the
\nGeneral Cemetery. It felt right. She loved that place, and we lived
\nnearby when we first moved to Sheffield.\u201d<\/p>\n

The collection offers a vivid portrait of Jill\u2019s heritage:
\nthe flatlands, her family, the cold and the constant presence of water. \u201cPeople who know that landscape really recognised it,\u201d Chris told me. \u201cShe captured its flavour.\u201d<\/p>\n

THE NENE<\/p>\n

\tForced out of its natural bent
\nheld tight in a girdle of wooden ribs
\ndredgers kept it clear
\nfor wheat from the Baltic, timber from Norway
\nand sailors who gave that part of town a bad name<\/p>\n

Pulled by the moon into eddies and swirls
\nfast turning tides left muddy banks
\nin naked pockmarked shiny shame
\nthen one full moon the waters rushed back
\nand high tides swept the Chinese chippy away<\/p>\n

A river held in, longing to escape
\nspun into whirlpools of slime and sludge
\nseparating old town from new town
\nBoys Grammar from Girls High
\nAt the end of that summer<\/p>\n

we stood on the bridge in our pastel dresses,
\nwhite collared and cuffed
\ngiddy with the future
\nemptied our satchels over the parapet
\nwatched our red berets swirl out to sea<\/p>\n

Since Jill\u2019s death, Chris has found comfort in writing and dancing. He wrote several poems around the time of the funeral,
\nincluding one after sitting in the undertaker\u2019s viewing room with his
\ndaughter. \u201cWe didn\u2019t open the coffin. I wrote about what it meant not to take a last look.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also dances regularly, specifically 5Rhythms<\/a>, a free-form movement practice that lets emotions move through the body. \u201cThere\u2019s rhythm in both dance and poetry. I\u2019ve felt joy, anger and grief all within one session. It\u2019s profoundly
\ncathartic.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"A<\/p>\n

Chris and Jill on the day of their civil partnership.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tChris Pyke.<\/p>\n

Chris also helped organise a men\u2019s grief event under the Compassionate Sheffield<\/a> banner. Nearly 30 men attended. \u201cGrief is universal, but every story is different. Some spoke in groups, some just listened. People were glad to have the space.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grief, we agreed, doesn\u2019t arrive in predictable ways. Sometimes it doesn\u2019t appear where you expect. Not at a grave or a memorial, but when you\u2019re sweeping the floor, or when a song from years ago plays on the radio. \u201cIt catches you off guard. And I think it\u2019s a gift to be able to cry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grief doesn\u2019t disappear \u2013 it changes shape. For Chris, Jill remains woven into everyday life. \u201cAny joy I feel now was kindled in the joy we had. It\u2019s a continuous thread.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve come to understand that too. When my mum was diagnosed with cancer, and later when she died, I struggled to make sense of what I was feeling. It was poetry that helped. Some poems seemed to speak directly to me. Writing became a release, a way to name what I couldn\u2019t express.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t always talk about grief in society, but creativity can help us approach it sideways, whether this is through art, music or movement. Even when there are no words, there\u2019s still the act of making. A poem, a journal entry, a dance. Something that says: I was here. They were here.<\/p>\n

Creativity won\u2019t erase grief, but it can help us live with it. It connects us to the people we\u2019ve lost \u2013 and to ourselves.<\/p>\n

\t\tLearn more<\/p>\n

The Water is Waiting by Jill Angood is available to buy<\/a> from Rhyme & Reason.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jill Angood and Chris Pyke. Chris Pyke. Poetry has become a big part of how I understand the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":338204,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8817],"tags":[748,393,4884,1620,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-338203","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sheffield","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-sheffield","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115015338583894653","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=338203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/338204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}