This morning I drove down to Queenswood Country Park & Arboretum for the official launch of Lyrics, Leaves & Lives audio trail.  I’ve contributed two poems to this, In Holm Wood and a brock geology, and the whole project was developed in partnership with Ledbury Poetry Festival.  It was the first of May, green and soft and slightly drizzling.  Queenswood Heritage Gateway Project Officer, Rose Farrington led a large group of contributors, volunteers and partners through the beautiful spring woods to find the six audio posts.  There’s a neat little leaflet with a map.

Each audio post has a marvellous selection of sounds you can choose to listen to – and is powered by human energy, as you have to wind the handle to hear the voices!

You can listen to birdsong, poems (as well as mine there’s a lovely poem about walking on a wet day from my friend Deborah Alma, aka Emergency Poet – and Jane Hirshfield, Gillian Clarke, Robert Frost, Edward Thomas and more), stories about Queenswood from people who know the place well – I loved the story about the prize Hereford bull and the bishop – and a marvellous series about pollinators voiced by children.  It turns out dung beetles are also pollinators, via eating the flower, pooing it out, rolling in the poo then carrying the seeds on to pastures new… all related with gusto, as you can imagine.