AN OTLEY based author's debut poetry collection which explores the themes of nature, memory, love and her own journey with MS has been published.

Glenda Kerney Brown's book Rock and Lodestone contains a collection of poetry, the majority of which were composed over the past two years during which time she has been attending a weekly creative writing course at Otley Courthouse led by the acclaimed poet James Nash, who has also written an introduction to the collection.

Themes explored in Rock and Lodestone include nature, the potency of memory, the dignity of animals, the kindness of strangers and what Nash refers to as ‘the underlying tragedy of our human experience, which is that we inevitably lose (or are lost to) the things we love’.

Having previously worked in Theatre in Education and as a professional actor in London, Glenda, who grew up near Baildon Moor, turned to art to help her through a dark period in her life. In the early 1990s she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis and it was at this crisis point that she began writing poetry.

“You have to find some way of dealing with it,” she said. “And for me having always been an artistic, creative person, poetry is the way it came out.”

The following is taken from the introduction written by James Nash whose books are published by Valley Press and whose work has also appeared in many anthologies: "With these endlessly inventive and marvellous poems Glenda Kerney Brown explores the things that she values, the things that she cleaves to, and the underlying tragedy of our human experience, which is that we inevitably lose (or are lost to) the things we love. Art has the power to hold back and make sense of this tide of loss, and with an artist’s palette Glenda commemorates the past, celebrates the present and contemplates the future in honest and beautiful poetry.

"None of these poems are long (I would argue that they are all of exactly the right length) but they each contain a world of imagery, wisdom and experience out of proportion to their size on the page. Glenda looks at her family, her animals, landscape and nature, and, in language that is suffused with a vibrant intelligence, illuminates them all to us."

Rock and Lodestone, £4.99, is published by Bennison Books and is available on Amazon. All proceeds will be donated to the MS Trust. Glenda Kerney Brown will be appearing at Ilkley Literature Festival Fringe on October 11.