York's secret history lies in its snickets, passageways, courts and yards – all of those in-between, out of the way routes: walk them and you inhabit history.

In a newly-commissioned sequence of site-specific poems for York Curiouser, John Wedgwood Clarke explores the way people have shaped and been shaped by these transitional places. To read the poems is to haunt these hidden ways and to be haunted by them; to fill yourself with the breath and spirit of an extraordinary city.

York Curiouser is a project that explores hidden York through contemporary art interventions, curated by Lara Goodband and Hazel Colquhoun. Find out more on www.yorkcuriouser.com

John Wedgwood Clarke was born in St Ives, Cornwall. He studied English at the University of York and lived in the city for ten years. He now works as a freelance writer and editor, and is a lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Hull. His debut pamphlet Sea Swim was published by Valley Press in 2012, followed by a first full-length collection, Ghost Pot, in 2013.