The Clearing - a journal of nature, landscape and place.

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An Owl for Winter by Richard Mabey
The view from my study during these polar days [2010] has been like an illustration from a Victorian book of moral parables. The magnificence of the frost suggests the beauty inherent in…
November 21, 2017
Essay, The Clearing
Fiona Sampson on Limestone
The first in a series of podcasts planned for 2018. The poet and biographer Fiona Sampson talks about the magic of limestone countries.
November 17, 2017
Podcast, The Clearing
What I Saw by Steven Williams
When she was here everything seemed full of charm and inner life. Now that I am alone the world is again a chaos of meaningless objects, and signs that point nowhere. A…
November 16, 2017
Essay, The Clearing
Harvest Films
The Harvest Short Film Competition is a biannual event curated by Lower Hewood Farm and the arts and environmental charity Common Ground. An open call to all filmmakers from around the world, living…
November 10, 2017
Film, The Clearing
Natural connections: memory and nature by Stephen Moss
It’s only a photograph, but it’s one of my most treasured possessions. It shows a toddler – me, when I was maybe eighteen months old dressed in what can only be described as…
October 30, 2017
Essay, The Clearing
New Poems from Sumana Roy
I Want To Be a Tree I want to be a tree. I know that this desire lives outside the curriculum. Irrationality is man’s favourite home – One man’s love…
October 30, 2017
Poetry, The Clearing
Seasonal Change – New Poems from Jos Smith, Isabel Galleymore, Ben Smith and Luke Thompson
This week we mark a change in the editorial panel of The Clearing. For the last four years, since its beginnings in August 2013 with Katrina Porteous’ ‘The Refuge Box’, we have…
October 23, 2017
Poetry, The Clearing
New Poems from Robert Peake and Jack Thacker
Collective A chastity of hawthorn, a smirch of blackberries, a wince of stinging nettle. Adam named the beasts, but the tribes of wildflower name themselves: You say “Grove of beeches.” They say,…
September 22, 2017
Poetry, The Clearing
New Poems from Sally Flint
Dare The kingfishers appeared more like darting fish; their wings skimmed the dappled water, assured they knew the measure of every bend along their flight. We were surprised by their…
August 12, 2017
Poetry, The Clearing
What Can Folk Horror Tell Us About Our Landscape? – Adam Scovell
Folk Horror is a term that has become synonymous with a wide variety of culture in recent years. From film and television to literature and music, the broadness of the description belies…
July 14, 2017
Poetry, The Clearing
Some Thoughts on Poetry and Fracking by Hugh Dunkerley
In 2014 I was asked to give a poetry reading at the anti-fracking camp in Balcombe, West Sussex. Thinking about what to read brought into focus issues which, as a poet and…
June 22, 2017
Essay, The Clearing
New Poems from Marc Woodward
Calf Eye The clump of gawkers stood around to watch a digger lift the dead calf from the beach. A Devon Red, it’s beaten hide sand-caked, twisted legs flung out,…
April 6, 2017
Poetry, The Clearing