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Valley Town<\/strong><\/p>\n Streets lineate the hillside, Noughties development has improved The cemetery at the end <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Helen Boden<\/strong> is a Yorkshire-born, Edinburgh-based writer, educator and editor, with poems in magazines and anthologies including New Writing Scotland, Mslexia, Lighthouse and Butcher\u2019s Dog. She also collaborates with visual artists to make responsive poems and place-specific text.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Valley Town Streets lineate the hillside, terrace above the A-road and river. Houses, built for workers in whatever line went on because of the watercourse, and caused the arterial road, look down on industry\u2019s light inheritors of the valley bottom: carparks, units, retail parks. Noughties development has improved on flats put up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16225"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16227,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16225\/revisions\/16227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nterrace above the A-road and river.
\nHouses, built for workers
\nin whatever line went on
\nbecause of the watercourse,
\nand caused the arterial road,
\nlook down on industry\u2019s
\nlight inheritors of the valley bottom:
\ncarparks, units, retail parks.<\/p>\n
\non flats put up on the hill
\nin the sixties: balconies
\nwith better prospects,
\nwood \/ glass walkways that bridge the slope.<\/p>\n
\nof the one bisecting lane
\nis half-way up onto the moor
\nthat keeps the town at bay
\nand rebuffs by night
\nmill-shop, golf course, holiday home,
\nthe shadow of the valley; that
\nis darker than the unpolluted sky.<\/p>\n