Connecting Things

The relationship between the North East and the ancient Greek and Roman worlds is one I have mainly explored through recasting characters, particularly those in Horace. These characters are alive and kicking, living in working-class Teesside. When I first engaged with poetry it became obvious that many felt excluded from it, that it was difficult to understand and not relevant to them. My aim, before I started to engage with classical literature, was to democratise it. The Classics, Roman and Greek literature, are not widely taught in schools, and so the subject has an air of exclusivity. My aim when I started writing versions of Horace was to bring him into my world, both from a geographical and societal perspective. In my versions, I invent characters and give them names not in the original texts, placing them in the North East of England and its culture. That way I can appeal to a non-classicist audience, present a different slant for classical scholars, and provide them with an alternative way of understanding. Therefore, I have selected for this chapter poems with particular North-East connections from my publication The Works and poems which brought artefacts to life in the north through my collection, Recollections .