The Last Dinosaur in Doncaster

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Winner of the 2020 International Book & Pamphlet Competition judged by Imtiaz Dharker & Ian McMillan

The Last Dinosaur in Doncaster is an exuberant journey down the ginnels of Yorkshire; from The Miners’ Strike and its ramifications, to men who should have been astronauts and no-nonsense women who get stuff done. These poems celebrate the importance of belonging, in all its gritty splendour.

Read a sample.

Published 1st February 2021

What Writers and Critics Think

  • The Last Dinosaur in Doncaster is a vivid love poem to the changing landscape of South Yorkshire and its residents. The poet suggests the teeming life of the place with language that rolls along on its own lively music and images that sing. ‘I could catch this language … place it in their palm to hold like a squab and watch it swell …’ Here, an astronaut’s ‘small step’ spins out to become an affectionate portrait of a father, and the simple act of sharpening a pencil becomes a thing of beauty.

    Imtiaz Dharker
  • I felt drawn to these poems partly because I know the area the poet is writing about; places like Highfields, Brodsworth Hall, Bentley. I guess this meant that I could sniff out any linguistic and cultural wrong notes but there were none. The writing felt local and universal like much good writing does and the phrasing captured the power and majesty of the way the people of that part of Doncaster speak. It felt like the poet was saying new things about old subjects like The Miners’ Strike and growing up, and there was a powerful anger in the poems that didn’t overwhelm them but fuelled their articulacy.

    Ian McMillan

Description

These poems are political: they are angry, but not shouty. They get the point across but always with humour. So, she does cover the miners strikes, the closures, the retail decay, the social issues — but all in a new light which, for me, is what makes this pamphlet so special.Jane Thomas, Sphinx (read full review here)

When a pamphlet wins a major competition adjudicated by such luminaries as Imtiaz Dharker and Ian McMillan – and when a number of the poems within that pamphlet have been placed in or won the Mslexia, Red Shed, Live Cannon International and Bread & Roses Poetry Competitions (and others: the acknowledgements page does some heavy lifting) – it’s a safe guess that the reader is in for some good poetry. The Last Dinosaur in Doncaster isn’t just good; it’s as good as it gets. As a second salvo following the Seren pamphlet Bloodlines (2019), which explored the poet’s Traveller heritage, it doubles down on that work’s statement of intent, that establishes Wimbush as a major new talent, a distinctive voice, in British poetry […]. This is muscular poetry, wrought with precision and loaded with experience. Mordant humour runs through it. Wimbush has a keen eye for human foibles, and heart and talent big enough to transform them into art. – Neil Fulwood, Everybody’s Reviewing (read full review here)

Sarah Wimbush’s refreshing take on a ruptured, but ineffably colourful, past bursts through conventional borders of definition to celebration, and is never derailed by the bittersweet, ‘kumquat’ irony of co-existent pain. Her documenting of memory dignifies the struggle with inventories of tangible detail, fixes in perpetuity the vision of a landscape at a time of cataclysmic change. Her observational powers are astonishingly acute, a sensual assault, leaving us breathless at the accumulative and repetitive weight of an imagery whose presence bespeaks a photographically authentic sense of a former life.The Yorkshire Times (read full review here)

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Filmpoem of ‘Near Extinction, a poem about The Miners’ Strike 1984/5. Poem written and read by Sarah Wimbush.

Filmpoem of ‘The Pencil Sharpener’ from The Last Dinosaur in Doncaster, written and read by Sarah Wimbush.

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Sarah Wimbush is a winner of both the Mslexia Poetry Competition (2016) and the Mslexia Poetry Pamphlet Competition (2019). Her debut pamphlet Bloodlines (Seren) explores her Gypsy/Traveller heritage. In 2019 she received a Northern Writers’ Award and second prize in the Ledbury Poetry Competition. She comes from Doncaster and currently lives in Leeds.

Additional information

Weight 0.087 kg
Dimensions 21 × 0.5 × 14.8 cm
Publication Year

February 2021

ISBN

978-1-912196-43-2, 978-1-912196-53-1

Pages

36

Format

eBook (ePub), Pamphlet