Cliff Fell
Cliff Fell is the author of two collections of poems. He was born in London, UK, to an English mother and New Zealand father and now lives in the Nelson region of the South Island, where he works in the School of Arts and Media at Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology. He is the current poetry correspondent on Nights with Bryan Crump on Radio New Zealand National.
Fell comments: ‘“Secret Vita” was written in 1989 after a visit to the ruins of Rievaulx Abbey in Yorkshire, while I was in my final year of studying for a combined honours degree in Archaeology and Medieval History at Exeter University. It is one of those poems that has, for various reasons, been gathering dust in the bottom of a drawer for the many years since then, but now that it has found its way into the world, I would like to dedicate it to Professor Christopher Holdsworth, an amusing tutor and brilliant lecturer, who introduced me to the life and work of Aelred. The course was, I seem to remember, on Twelfth Century Monasticism.’
