Ian Parks has just edited ‘Versions of the North’ published by Five Leaves. It is, as Ian points out in the interview, the first poetry anthology to come out of Yorkshire for nearly thirty years. Born and bred in the Midlands, I am guilty of only considering the obvious, when it comes to poets who have emerged from ‘up North’.

The anthology was enlightening and a delightful read, because I was able to easily engage with the poetry. This does not mean that the poetry is simplistic; far from it. Every word counts and each word is used in a way that must be savoured.

Tell me about your background and the influence it has had on your career.

I was born in 1959 in Mexborough, which is a small mining town in South Yorkshire. Mexborough was, and still is to an extent, defined by mining. It was quite a prosperous town in the 1930s and…