Daleswoman, Shepherdess and Pilgrim

Kate Rhodes’ poetry reflects her upbringing, travels, and lifelong fascination with light. Her early verse, shaped by years teaching in Central Africa (1960–1964), captures landscapes and daily life with precision and honesty, the fierce sun both subject and metaphor. Later, her fascination with glass — clear, coloured, stained — inspired poems rooted in Bolton Priory and York Minster, where she worked as a guide. In pieces such as The Glazier’s Night-Prayer, she blends wit, reverence, and vision. Living on a Yorkshire farm, her work turned earthward, engaging vividly with weather, birds, and soil, yet always reaching toward the spiritual. Across these phases, Rhodes’ poetry grows freer, more candid, and unified by her deep sensitivity to light