Hello and welcome to Frank Skinner's poetry podcast. This week I want to talk about a

poet called Jen Hadfield and her collection of poetry, The Stone Age. I'm holding it

in my right hand as we speak and I suppose all you need to know by way of background is

that Jen Hadfield lives and works I believe in Shetland, the northernmost extremity of Scotland,

which is also not that far from Norway and the Faroe Islands. So a place that's sort of touched

by Scottishness and Scandinavianness as well and I think you'll taste that in the poetry.

I'm going to start by reading a poem called Hardanga Fiddle and Nickel Harper, which is not

about a local legal firm. They are two instruments, Hardanga Fiddle and Nickel Harper. They are

Scandinavian musical instruments and I want to read this because I think it gives a real flavour of

what Jen Hadfield is about in this collection, The Stone Age and then I think I want to read

another couple if I have time and this provides a sort of a key to them in a way. Okay, I'm going

to go in with a big-ish chunk so don't feel you have to really soak up every moment in this,

just let it flow over you as if I was playing perhaps a Scandinavian string instrument and you

were just soaking it up. So help me I would rather write a song, a wordless song for the strings of

the north, Hardanga Fiddle and Nickel Harper, like Jules Hune in Fox and Wood, keys delicate overbite,

selfish devices in mother of pearl, like nights the sea calms, paler than the sky, short bow

lighten off to touch the nerves of the north, fretful in a shiver of sympathetic strings.

Right, so, so help me it becomes good start, so help me, you know when people say so help me,

I'm going to kill that cat. It's like I know I shouldn't be saying this but I'm just being

completely honest. There's also a more formal side to the honesty involved in so help me of course,

it's the old court oath, I say old because I don't know if people still take oaths in court in

this secular age, but when you promise to tell the whole truth, so help me God, so it begins so

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