London Draft
In February 2026, John Challis and filmmaker David Spittle visited the industrial Thames estuary and the Cranham Marsh Nature Reserve near where Challis grew up, to explore connections between memory, place and poetry.
The film London Draft is a record of searching for the places that leave their traces on the imagination and the self.
The film includes John Challis reading his poems ‘Youth’, ‘Night God, ‘London’s Edge’, ‘Pylons’, and ‘The Green Parcel’ from his second collection The Green Parcel (Bloodaxe, 2026).
A film by David Spittle, with music by Days Like Television.
Hallsong
Hallsong, a film by Christo Wallers, with poetry by John Challis, written during his time as writer-in-residence at Seaton Delaval Hall in Northumberland. Filmed on location at the National Trust property, with poems read by John Challis as well as by Seaton Delaval Hall staff.
Hallsong was created as part of a residency produced by the National Trust and New Writing North within Rising Stars, a partnership with Northumbria University which formed part of Seaton Delaval Hall’s National Lottery Heritage Fund-supported Curtain Rises project.
The poems read are ‘Winter Opening Hours’, ‘Hallsong’, ‘What we know’, ‘Ha-Ha’, ‘The best is still below’, ‘The Servants’, ‘Letter from a Farmer’, ‘Underhouse’, ‘Conductor’, ‘Closing Night’, ‘A Way of Knowing’ and ‘The Mausoleum’.
The poems were first published in the limited edition pamphlet Hallsong: poems for Seaton Delaval Hall (New Writing North/the National Trust, 2022).
All of these poems (apart from ‘The Servants, ‘Letter from a Farmer’ and ‘Conductor’) are now included in John Challis’s second full-length collection The Green Parcel (Bloodaxe, 2026).
Music: Wind Harp – Thomas Rex Beverley