[Joe Crocker]

Thanks all for googling the Stokenchurch gap. I think it is not an especially well known name in the UK but I used to live near it, and it did feature in the opening credits of “The Vicar of Dibley”, a hugely popular UK Sit Com.

Thanks Glenn for being quick on the draw. I did have have several variants before I settled on “circumscribe” and your suggestion of “deep incised” would work. I liked circumscribed because of the “scribed” referencing penmanship and “inscribed”. And “circum” implying a curved shape and "circumscribed" meaning within tightly defined limits. But yes, I am aware that "circumscribed" usually just means restricted.

Susan, Paula. I was afraid that the arse slapping would be likely to offend. It was definitely not intended as affectionate. It was meant to be lewd.

The Chilterns are a group of gently rounded chalk hills, which seem very female to me. The Stokenchurch gap which was cut into them is a bold engineering feat of the 1970s. In the poem, I’m trying to convey something of the male gaze and the temerity of the (I assume) male architects and builders. The cut is an audacious thing, which I am staggered by in positive and negative ways. I get the same feeling when I see the surgeon’s scalpel make that very first cut into living human flesh. It is both appalling and amazing.

So I did want the poem to capture some elements of pornography, violence and creation. I guess that is dangerous ground and may be too much for me to squeeze into 8 lines.