Portsmouth poet, Pauline Hawkesworth draws extensively on her experiences of the northern fringes of the city. ‘The Heron’ conjures one of those vivid moments of connection with natural environments that are all the more charged for being surrounded by intense human infrastructure. Hawkesworth’s poetry is often effectively structured by contrasts of one kind or another, but its impact is as much about its precise, sharp imagery and crystal-clear language – recalling, in this respect, the finest moments of the Imagist movement of the Modernist era. The heron of the title, seen one night where the bikers gathered for their burgers and coffee on the carpark by the Portsbridge, off the A3, is a primeval and powerful figure, enduring in ways that only natural things can be, and uncanny in ways that only herons can manage – rooted firmly in this world and yet somehow other-worldly. The poem is included here with the kind permission of the poet.

The Heron

From the seat of his beak
to the back of his head
a slit of black light escapes.

From the tassels of his bib
as he struts the creek
to the strong bend of his neck
he oozes I’m King.

Cars, lorries, buses
on the motorway nearby
do not divert his attention,

as wings out-stretched
encompassing shallow mud
his throat rasps open.

He stabs with his sword beak.
Waits. Strong lines of a primitive race
survive traffic and garbage.

He will be there in the future
selecting morsels we let slip,
an endless bounty pattering down
his throat.

Pauline Hawkesworth (b. 1943) was born in Portsmouth and lived with her parents and sister Marian in the corner shop of her grandmother in Laburnum Grove (where another Portsmouth author, Olivia Manning, also lived). The family moved to the suburb of Drayton in 1954. She left school at fifteen and worked as a telephonist for estate agents Young and White. She joined the WRNR and was stationed in the underground complex at Fort Southwick. Pauline married architect Rex Hawkesworth in 1961 and has two daughters Ruth and Lee.

Her first book, Dust and Dew (1969) was published by Mitre Press and reached universities both in the UK and USA. A short film about it was made by BBC South at the time. Her first published poem was in Script in 1971. Pauline has three further collections, from open competitions. These are Developing Green Films (1998, from the Redbeck Competition, judges Geoffrey Holloway and Patricia Pogson); Bracken Women in Lime Trees (2009), one of three winners for publication in book form by Indigo Dreams; and Life-Savers on All Sides (2017) Her poems are of place and the natural world, they inhabit the ‘twilight zone’, ‘a world beyond our senses’, and ‘transfigure the ordinary’. She has won and been placed in many competitions and has poems in many anthologies, her favourite being The Spirit of Wilfred Owen (2002). Hawkesworth also produced a booklet of poems entitled Marshland Ballad. In 2021, she won the Southport Writers’ Circle Open Poetry Competition. Pauline is President of Portsmouth Poetry Society.

Pauline broke the Portsmouth Schools 100 yards record as a junior, and was an active member of Portsmouth Atalanta Athletic Club. She was a Coach, Track and Field Judge, and administrator for many years. With her husband Rex, as lead coach, their athletes won over thirty Hampshire County titles, and two girls represented England at 400m. They have coached for over fifty years.

Pauline is secretary to Rex and his architectural practice, a member of St. Francis Church, has an allotment, and is extremely fond of dogs.

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