Offers a reaffirmation of the nature, language and music with which the poet finds himself surrounded in his hilltop home in the Pennines.

Michael Haslam was born in Bolton, Lancashire in 1947, and has lived in the Calder Valley since 1970. Widely published in the network associated with 'The Cambridge School of Poetry' in the 1960s, he became widely known through the publication, to great acclaim, of his collected poems, A Whole Bauble, by Carcanet in1995. He has worked as a labourer most of his life, but now, thanks to a legacy, he is able to devote his time to writing. A Cure for Woodness is the third part of Haslam's trilogy Music, the first two parts of which, The Music Laid her Songs in Language (Arc, 2001) and A Sinner Saved by Grace (Arc, 2005) were widely praised and received excellent reviews when they were published. Like the first two parts of the triology, A Cure for Woodness is a reaffirmation in of the nature, language and music with which the poet finds himself surrounded in his hilltop home in the Pennines.

Introduction / 7 Woodnesse, Abscence, Despondency & Oddness: A Bunch of Tales / 20, Belabouring in Reverie / 25, Face Readdressed / 27, Running to Meter / 28, Lyric in Blemish / 30 Old Hall down in the Hollow; Spring up Sunny Bank / 31, Wastes of The Picturesque / 39 Regressions: All Blue Chickens go to Goodgold / 45, Heretical Expectorate / 58, A Lubrick Loosed / 60 Cures for Woodness: Starlight Dates The Palm / 63, Prince Phoebus Columbus (Elegiac) / 64, First Forest Tarn Epiphany / 74, The Sylvan Noumenon / 75, The Loves of English - i) Haslam's Folly / 78, ii) Finds Pleasure in The Melancholy / 85, iii) Sounding Secularly Holy / 91 Appendix: [it]