Red Devon

In the late 1990s, Hilary Menos made the unusual move from Camden Town to a Devon farmhouse, two miles from the nearest village. Over the next ten years, together with her husband and three sons, she turned the hundred acres into an organic farm, complete with herd of pedigree Red Devon cows.

Red Devon reveals her experiences as a 'blow in' from upcountry, moving into a tight-knit rural community, and witnessing first-hand the conflict between farming tradition and modern commerce.

"Menos creates small worlds packed tight, seamless, masterfully compressed. Her poems have wit, range and strength..."
Ruth Padel

Hilary Menos was born in Luton in 1964. Her first collection, Berg (Seren, 2009), won the 2010 Forward Prize for Best First Collection. She has won or placed in the National, Bridport and Mslexia Poetry Competitions, while Wheelbarrow Farm won the Templar Pamphlet Competition in 2010. Another pamphlet, Extra Maths, was published by Smith Doorstop in 2006. Her work has appeared in BBC Wildlife magazine, and she has read at events alongside Seamus Heaney and Dannie Abse.