You can stride energetically across lonely crags, declaiming in a grand Tennysonian voice about “always roaming with a hungry heart”, or you might shuffle up High Holborn, thinking of Celia with “nothing on”, as did Adrian Mitchell. Poetry walks take many forms: some places demand epic stanzas; others respond to limericks. You can walk for a few minutes, or weeks. The point is that walking with poetry is great fun. Maybe it’s the rhythm thing: our language must have been invented and honed by miles of walking. In fact, as soon as we were walking long distances and trying to remember routes, poetry probably began to be useful as a navigational mnemonic. Walking does lend itself perfectly to learning lines and recitation, something kids are good at and enjoy. John Cooper Clarke said you learn the lines at 12 and find out what they mean 30 years later (he also said “I hate walking”, but we’ll step over that). If there is a prepared route, fine. Some of these 10 suggestions have that, and others make use of existing footpaths, but they all share a link between landscape and poet.
There are many more poetic walks available (try Simon Armitage’s brilliant Stanza Stones around the Pennine Way), but too few dedicated to female poets. Isn’t it time we had a Stevie Smith Way in north London, or a Barrett Browning Trail around Ledbury? The following collection features walks that are ready to roll, best done with headphones and an audio link to the poems where possible. Spotify has poetry from all these choices, sometimes read by the poets themselves. Other sources can also be found online.
