Walking through: nostalgia, Mythogeography and the Rural Dérive in Peter Riley’s Alstonefield

Kemp, Sam (2023) Walking through: nostalgia, Mythogeography and the Rural Dérive in Peter Riley’s Alstonefield. New Writing, 20 (1). pp. 99-110.

Abstract

Landscape poet Peter Riley uses the Situationist dérive in order to negotiate the cultural landscape of the British countryside, his collection Alstonefield (2002) forming a psychogeographic investigation into spaces of nostalgia, contradiction and pastoralism in British ruralism. This essay will argue that Riley adapts the urban dérive for a contemporary rural landscape, exploring the radicalisms of pastoral tropes and exposing the spectacle in British rural perceptions. Using the framework of Phil Smith Mythogeography, a contemporary theatrical adaption of the Situationist dérive, my aim is to explore the role of walking as a negotiation of rural spectacle within the wider Radical Landscape Poetry movement.

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