Playwright, lyricist and poet Tom Kelly who now lives further up the Tyne river at Blaydon, has released a new collection of poems published by Northumberland based Red Squirrel Press.

‘My collection, prior to ‘These Are My Bounds’ was ‘Walking My Streets’ (interview on site July 2024) published in 2024 and from that point I was building up work for my next collection’ said Tom.

‘I prefer to have new work published in magazines and the majority of poems in a new collection have been published. It allows me to see them more objectively.’

‘Once I’ve had a number of poems published, I begin to select which ones may work in the together. Next is the business of the running order. I found with, ‘These Are My Bounds’ they worked best by moving from past to present. I open the collection with a poem using my grandmother, Maggie Henderson, who died in Jarrow in 1969.’

Tom has had fourteen books published by Red Squirrel Press, the first was ‘The Wrong Jarrow’ from Smokestack Books.

‘That was in 2007 and is now out-of-print. Before these collections I had a number of pamphlets published by a variety of small publishers.’

Tom adds ‘My first pamphlet was the ‘Gibbeting of Wm. Jobling,’ published by the Bede Gallery, Jarrow in 1972.The publication was made up of poetry, prose, contemporary documents and illustrated by Vincent Rea.’

What are your hopes for this new collection?

‘I would, like most poets, to find readers who warm to my work with positive reviews and good sales to have my publisher Sheila Wakefield of Red Squirrel Press publish my next collection.’

Quotes and reviews from previous collections.

‘Another consummate, heart-warming collection from the talented Tom Kelly’.

Alan Morrison, in Morning Star.

‘He writes in a simple style, sometimes in the dialect of his native north-east. What he writes about should never be forgotten, though the rich and the powerful do their best to expunge it from collective memory.’ Review of ‘No Love Rations’, short story collection. MQB  

‘Tom Kelly writes poems that are straightforward and about the people and the places he’s known all his life. The North-East is his “small patch” and its history and traditions loom large in just about everything he writes. If the term “regional writer” means anything it certainly applies to a writer like Kelly. You can see and smell and hear both the past and the present as you read the short, jabbing lines with their penny-plain words.’ The Penniless Press 

‘These Are My Bounds’ available from Red Squirrel Press.

Alikivi   March 2026