‘Canoe Lake’ by Tricia Torrington, quoted here with the kind permission of the poet, is, like many of the poet’s works, a meditation on childhood – in this case turning to her relationship with her older sister. Less dark than many of Torrington’s poems, there is still a troubling undercurrent at work here that leaves readers unsettled and full of questions. See also Torrington's 'Cumberland House' poem nearby.

Canoe Lake
The great Morass dwindled to
The Canoe Lake
where we went crabbing
, picking up what the sea washed in.

The scuttling booty set in jars tied with string.
I couldn’t touch them.
‘Like this’ she’d say putting her fingers just so
and pushing them up towards my face.

She pushed me in. Although
it wasn’t deep, I wasn’t very big.
Are all big sisters bullies?
They do say you get what you deserve.

She didn’t get what she deserved.
A stranger took me in, dressed me
in a dry woolly and kilt too big for me.
Took me home in a car bigger than ours.

Murky waters swamped my thoughts, scared
my open-mouthed surprise as I went under
meant I might have swallowed a tiny crab
or, just as bad, trodden on the bigger ones.

Decades later, is it? It doesn’t seem so.
I think of those soft-shelled long-legged ones
in a Chinese banquet in Beijing.
I couldn’t eat them, couldn’t work out how.

I still have a thing about crabs.

Tricia Torrington was born in Owen St, Eastney and is an artist, printmaker, and poet, whose collection, The Opium Fish (2010) was published by Flarestack Books and reprinted by Griffin Books. Although no longer resident in the city, her work draws widely on her experiences of Portsmouth, and many of these are included on this map. ‘Belonging’ recalls her time at Portsmouth Grammar School for Girls (now the Priory School). Torrington has published three poems relating to St James’ Hospital: ‘Amnesia’ is about her experiences of spending time there after a severe blow to the head that caused short term memory loss. ‘Allegories of Separation’ (which was commended in the Hippocrates Poetry Awards) is about her mother’s positive experience of the nursing care there while suffering from vascular Dementia. Other Portsmouth locations in her poetry include Canoe Lake, Portsea, Langstone Harbour, Portsdown Hill, and Cumberland House. She is working on a new collection entitled Ghost Dance. Her work is rich in local detail, sympathetic, and imaginative. Her command of language and varied use of form – both rhymed and free verse – are combined with a direct and compelling voice.

Something of a polymath, Tricia has had a wide, varied, and very productive career. She studied nursing at Portsmouth’s St Mary’s Hospital, before working in the pharmaceutical industry, in marketing and research, becoming Director of Ethical Research for an international company. In 1991, she starting her own international agency, designing research projects, and connecting the pharmaceutical sector to practitioners, patients and charities. She retired from this role in 2013, and as well as being a poet, she is now a printmaker and artists book maker and was awarded an MA in [Fine Arts?] from the University of Gloucestershire in 2006. Examples of her work can be found here, while interviews in which Tricia talks about her craft are here, here and here

As a talented singer /guitarist, Tricia was long a regular on the folk scene, as well as being in many folk-rock, jazz, and rock bands. She is married to the poet, Michael Henry.

If you have any comments, queries, or suggestions about any of the map entries, please contact the Map Director, Mark Frost: mark.frost@port.ac.uk#