Honour
Daphne Astor
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From the publisher
A collection of poems and a selection of field notes by the late Daphne Astor: artist, farmer, poet, environmentalist, philanthropist and founder of Poetry in Aldeburgh and Hazel Press.
The dog barks, pasts unfurl
it is time to accept there is no
safe place on this earth.
About the author:
“Daphne wrote energetically, impulsively – challenging herself to capture in words what her photographic eye had seen out in the open: sharp, refined imagistic stills from a world accelerating through its seasons.” (Matthew Hollis.)
When Daphne died in 2024 she left behind more than 450 poems. The 30 pieces chosen for this collection are from 2010-2024, a period when she focused intently on her writing, especially poetry. During these years she trained at the Faber Academy and regularly attended the Lamb Poets group in London. She was closely involved in supporting other poets and writers and took an active role in establishing the Cambridge Literary Festival. After the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival lost its funding in 2015, she instigated its successor, Poetry in Aldeburgh.
The title piece of the collection, ‘For Honour’, is a version of a poem-film Daphne made in the spring and summer of 2021 for a postgraduate dissertation at Dartington. The work was born from months of near-daily field notes she made at dusk throughout the preceding autumn and winter. At twilight she retreated to sit in her “brooding shelter”, a rough canopy of corrugated iron in the wildflower meadow next to her house. Sitting alone, she observed the natural world while the light dwindled into darkness. Some of the seasonal notes she made during those months are included in the collection as well as the finished poem.
Daphne explained her intentions as follows:
‘Honour’ reconfirms the perspectives and importance of recording a specific time and place with field notes, then sharing and transforming the outcomes ‘slant’ with poetry and text. Observing the reality then reinterpreting the information and experience … enabled me to share 197 twilights and gently reiterates the importance of solitary acts of positive environmental commitment.
In 2020 Daphne fulfilled a long-held wish to be a publisher and founded Hazel Press, dedicated to the environment, feminism and the arts. She raised funding for the first few titles by selling scarves she had hand-knitted from recycled woollen yarn, and by selling some of the art and photography books that she had accumulated over the years. This thrifty re-purposing of creative elements was typical of her way of life, which centred on practical care for the environment.
As a collection, Honour demonstrates the strength and subtlety of Daphne’s response to the living world and her acute perception of the relationship between beings, whether human or more-than-human.