A serious illness at the age of six left Josephine Dickinson deaf overnight. She nonetheless built an astounding career as a musician, composer, and teacher while also writing poetry filled with sound and rhythm. During a reading tour in England, Galway Kinnell was given two of Dickinson's books. Her poems made such an impression on him that he passed the books on to his publisher. Silence Fell, Dickinson's American debut, draws from her previous collections. The poems are set on a sheep farm in the northern mountains of England and tell the story — in the form of a modern shepherd's calendar — of her marriage to a Cumbrian sheep farmer, a man more than twice her age, and their life together, until his death in 2004. As the poet Michael Donaghy wrote, "Hers is a vision edged with mystery and rendered with arresting, occasionally breathtaking craft. She bears, with no small authority, an air of independence reminiscent of Emily Dickinson."

"Dickinson's life story could win somebody an Oscar; rendered profoundly deaf at the age of six, the Englishwoman nevertheless attended Oxford, then became a composer and a music teacher before moving to the remote village of Alston, in England's Northeast. There she fell in love with Douglas Dickinson, an elderly sheep farmer; the couple led a delighted rural life together for years before Douglas' death in 2004. Selected from two UK volumes (2001"s Scarberry Hill and 2004"s The Voice), these gentle verses of love and rural life describe the happy couple, their alternately green and wintry surroundings, and the work of gardening, keeping house and raising lambs, wethers and ewes. Poems about Douglas-some in rhyming forms-can be unguardedly tender: 'When we step round the house/ to the front door again and kiss,/ we know it is no ordinary/ love, this.' Her poems on his death would melt even an adamant heart. The volume's arrangement follows the rural year, from March to February, through planting and harvest, the lambing and slaughtering seasons, and moving records of particular scenes: 'The windsock pulls/ to east. It might yet rain. The moment stays.' Only a few poems-notably the two-page tour de force 'I Thought You'd Gone to the River,' reminiscent of Edward Thomas-achieve individual, memorable forms, but the whole collection resounds with genuine emotion, and could be a sleeper hit. Galway Kinnell's inspiring foreword describes how the American poet met the Englishwoman, and praises the simplicities Kinnell sees in her work." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

On a tour in northern England, Galway Kinnell attended a reading by

Josephine Dickinson. She made such an impression on him with her

brilliant poems and unusual background that he has offered a rare, special

introduction to her U.S. debut book. At the age of six a serious illness left

Dickinson deaf overnight. She nonetheless built a career as a musician,

composer, and teacher, while also writing poetry filled with sound and

rhythm. The forty-five poems in Silence Fell are set on a sheep farm in the

northern mountains. She moved there thirteen years ago and fell in love

with a local farmer, a man more than twice her age, who has recently

died. The poems tell a unique love story through a modern shepherd's

calendar.

Galway Kinnell is a former MacArthur Fellow and has been state poet of Vermont. In 1982 his Selected Poems won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. For many years he was the Erich Maria Remarque Professor of Creative Writing at New York University. He is currently a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. For thirty-five years-from WHAT A KINGDOM IT WAS to THE BOOK OF NIGHTMARES to THREEE BOOKS--Galway Kinnell has been enriching American poetry, not only by his poems but also by his teaching and his powerful public readings.JOSEPHINE DICKINSON, author of Scarberry Hill and The Voice,was born in South London in 1957. She studied classics at Oxfordand taught music for many years. She has lived in Alston, a smallCumbrian town high in the Pennines, for more than a decade. Thesummer 2005 issue of the British literary magazine Staple praised thebest "Alt Generation"of British poets (a response to the Guardian's"Next Gen"contest), and Dickinson was the first choice listed byboth judges.

Foreword by Galway Kinnell xi

Down Two Fields 1

March 4 Apple Pie 6 Scarberry Hill 8

April 9 The Bargain 10 Do I Sleep with You? 11 The Red and the Blue 12

May 13 He Wears His Owl Glasses 14 The Boiling Bit 15

June 17 Viagra 18 Tommy 19

July 21 Cherries 22 My Lover Gave Me Green Leaves 24 There’s Something Going On Here 26

August 27 How Can I Explain to You That He Was Real? 28 Two Treasures 29 Annunciation 31 Farewell to Samantha 32 Banks of Clouds 33

September 34 Sheila and Jack 35 There’s a Stream Outside the Gate 37 There Was a Darkness in the Air 39 The Lambs Were Still Running with the Ewes 40

October 43 At the Elk’s Head 45

November 46 Heart 47 Your Way 48

December (Christmas Box) 52 Two Feet in a Sack 53 I Thought You’d Gone to the River 54

January 56 Breathing 57

February 59 We Three 61 The Last Time You Came Home 62

Nothing More 64 There Were Rainbows Every Day 67 Where Were You When I Came In from the Evening Milking? 69