Steve Sneyd (1941 - 2018): In Memoriam

Photograph © 2001, Gerald England.

people who have vanished
pressed into poems in small defunct magazines
still breath sometimes athwart my dreams

so wrote Steve Sneyd in Tributary Fractions which I published in The Hallamshire & Osgoldcross Poetry Express back in 1973.

Photograph © 2018, Gerald England.

Last week I said goodbye to him as he was buried at the Rose Hill Burial Ground,
a non-denominational site for natural burials at Birkby above Huddersfield. His family, local friends and various people from the small press world including Andy Darlington, John Francis Haines, J C Hartley, Pete Presford and Chris Reed, gathered under the shade of a large tree in the grounds. We heard about his life, his work and his achievements, listened to some of his poetry and paid our respects.

Photograph © 2018, Gerald England.

I first knew Steve when he was publishing Ludd's Mill and I had started Headland. We both contributed to a large number of the so-called "little magazines" that proliferated in the small press world of the 1970s and into the millennium.. In the pre-internet era they became a network through which poets communicated with each other. We met up at conventions around the country in Liverpool, Dartford, Norwich, Corby, Middlesbrough, Hastings, Newcastle and elsewhere. The photograph at the top of the page was taken at the Purple Patch convention hosted by Geoff Stevens in Sandwell. There Steve gave a talk on The Inclusion Of Poetry In Novels.

I've published numerous poems by Steve Sneyd over the years and in 1992 his collection A Mile Beyond The Bus. which was illustrated by Ian M Emberson (1936 - 2013).

Photograph © 2018, Gerald England.

Despite have a huge interest in science fiction he was something of a luddite when it came to the internet. However he was a regular contributor to Comopoetry coordinated by Andrei Dorian Gheorghe from Romania. His contribution to their Through the Light anthology was:

IN DESPITE OF PROSPERO

Fall of Ariel
this high brightness coming fast
to free Caliban

***

PHILAE CALLING

from the comet’s shadow
pod voice back so long
"I’m still really yours"

-by Steve Sneyd (UK, laureate of the Peterson Trophy, director of Hilltop Press, editor of Data Dump)

Learn more about Steve and his work in the International Times.

He will not be forgotten.

Sons of Camus Writers International Journal 2015

My contribution to the 2015 edition of Sons of Camus Writers International Journal 2015 marking the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II is this image of the Monument at Lakki in the White Mountains, Crete.

It is printed on the inside of the back cover opposite a poem by Changming Yuan

STANDING, WE ARE UNITED

on the only rock found in this waste land
let's arise, arise high against the sky
by standing on the shoulders of each other
not only to re-find the same and one
language we used to speak in Babel
not only to see further than Wang Zhihuan
after he climbed to another storey, or
than Newton on the shoulders of giants
but to use our own bodies as a totem pole
in honour of the tens of millions of civilians
slaughtered in Nanjing, murdered in Auschwitz
and killed in numerous villages and towns
from eastern China to western Europe

hey, do you see the spectre drifting around
right above Yasukuni Shrine as Abe
and his followers pay tribute to the war criminals?

© Changming Yuan

In Russia during WWII, up to 35 million people were killed. Russian V-Day 9 May 1945.
In China during WWII, more than 20 million people were killed.
Chinese V-Day 3 September 1945.
In both cases, many were civilians, unarmed and unprepared.

You can read more poems by Changming Yuan on his blog yuanspoetry©.

The 200 page journal (ISSN 1705-429X) is edited by Ann J Davidson and published by Rubi Andredakis (email roubi@cytanet.com.cy) from Rubini Publications, Gropius Street No 30, Limassol 3076, Cyprus. Price Euro 9; UK £6; USA $10; Canada $15 (including shipping)

There is a wealth of reading, poems, essays, fiction, reviews in the new volume. Other contributors include Raymond Humphreys, Herbert Kuhner, Neil Leadbeater, John Light, Morelle Smith, Sam Smith, Maureen Weldon and a host more.

A contribution to The Weekend in Black and White.

ABC Wednesday:M is for Mabel

I recently came across this photograph taken in November 1982.

Left to right are Loris Essary, Christine England, Mabel Ferrett, Mabel McGowan and Fred Schofield.

Loris was editor at the time of the US magazine "Interstate" and called on us during a visit to Europe. We held a small meeting of the Pennine Poets at our house and Fred Schofield from Leeds brought over the two Mabels for the evening.

Fred Schofield founded the Yorkshire/Lancashire haiku group in 1995, and is presently the haibun editor for Presence.

I published a collection of poems by Mabel McGowan, "Testament to a Life" which includes the poem Circle.

Read my account of Mabel Ferrett's life on Ackworth born, gone West and an obituary by Pauline Kirk in The Guardian.

This second photograph was taken in 1986 and shows Mabel Ferrett in the garden of her house on Vernon Road, Heckmondwike.

Read her poem about and my photographs of Hartshead Church.

For more M posts visit ABC Wednesday.

Shamrock #16

A new issue of Shamrock is now online. Shamrock (No 16) has a big selection of Hungarian haiku in English translation, as well as an international section, an essay on haiku and copyright, as well as a haibun and a book review. It also features the winning poems from the IHS International Haiku Competition 2010.

Well worth reading.

ABC Wednesday J is for Jocelynne Preciouse (1930 - 2010)

© 2009, Jocelynne Precious
It was in June that I learnt Jocelynne Precious had died suddenly. I knew her as the editor of the magazine Curlew. We first met in the mid-70s at meetings of the Yorkshire Federation of Small Presses. In more recent times she would ring me up about three times a year to talk about poets and small press matters. She never had a computer but would look things up on the Internet at the library in Harrogate.

Jocelynne studied under Clifford Ellis at Bath Academy of Art (aka "Corsham"). One of the art teachers there was William Scott who taught her painting. She was a member of Harrogate Writers' Circle.

Issue 64 of Curlew is a chapbook collection by Jocelynne called SWIMMING IN THE NORTH SEA.

trying to stay afloat
trying to make sense of it all
and on the straight horizon
a long slim boat

A number of the poems (like the one above) are reproduced from hand-written manuscript rather than typescript.


Issue 65 has work by Neil Leadbeater, Daniel Healy, Peter Asher, John Younger and A C Evans. The cover design is by Peter Precious.

Issue 66 was the 1st issue of Chaucer described as

An occasional publication covering literature and the Arts; philosophy; history & current affairs; genre fiction (science fiction/fantasy/crossover) humour; reviews, criticism, correspondence.

Referring to House of Fame, Steve Sneyd asks

"Did Chaucer indeed see the far future in this long narrative poem of 1379, its title, after all, derived from Ovid's Metamorphoses and thus backward, not forward, looking?"

Rodney Noon answers the question "Where do you write?" and there are poems by Anne Grant and Alan Hardy.

Patricia Prime reviewed her collection THE SURPRISING SUMMER for NHI Review where you can also find reviews of Curlew issues ##51, 52, 54, 56. Elsewhere on this blog are reviews of ##57, 58 and also ##59, 60

A stalwart of the small press scene since the 70s, she will be much missed.

For more J posts visit ABC Wednesday.

Haijinx is back

haijinx was an international web-based journal that focused on "the hai in haiku". It was created by Mark Brooks in 2001 and staffed by an international band of editors. It featured haiku, articles, reviews, poet spotlights and detailed author bios.

In March 2004, the original issues of haijinx were pulled from the web due to broken links.

On February 14, 2010, Mark relaunched the haijinx portal with a new haikai twitter feed, @haijinx.

Now the pages from the original issues have been archived, as I discovered when Google alerted by my haiku published on page 3 of Vol.1 #1 Spring 2001.

To find out more about putting the hai back in haiku visit haijinx.

In Memoriam: Eric Ratcliffe (1918 - 2009)

Eric Ratcliffe was born in Teddington on 18th August 1918. During the Second World War he served in India as an ammunition examiner. He was married in 1947 but divorced in 1960. He founded and edited Ore poetry magazine from 1954 to 1995.

I never personally met Eric but we corresponded for many years. After closing Ore he became a regular reviewer for NHI Review. When the review first went online he sent me his reviews typed and I had to scan or retype them. However after a few years he became computer competent and was able to email his reviews.

I suspect though that his main reason for going online was due to his interest in chess. I understood that he had played postal chess for a good number of years and the transition to computer chess made for a swifter return of moves.

As a reviewer one of his strengths was that he turned them round usually within a week. Of course, like all my reviewers, he ruffled a few feathers. He was a little pernickity about format and would criticise pamphlets that carried no pagination or failed to obtain a proper ISBN. He was critical too of sloppy proof-reading.

Four of Eric's many collections are reviewed on NHI Review.

Poetry Salzburg published two collections of his poetry as well as the anthology Veins of Gold: ORE 1954-1995 ed. Eric Ratcliffe & Wolfgang Görtschacher (ISBN 3-7052-0089-5, A5/perfect bound, 259pp).

As well as poetry and chess his interests included the Druid order. One of the photos found on his website shows him leading a Druid procession up Primrose Hill in 1968. I know very little about this side of his character.


I only discovered that Eric had died due to the return in December of my annual Xmas card marked "gone away". It wasn't until I spoke with Steve Sneyd who had correspondence returned marked "deceased" that I was certain. The local press in Stevenage where he lived do not appear to have carried an obituary. Sneyd, writing in Data Dump #144 (80p/$2 from 4 Nowell Place, Huddersfield HD5 8PB), says

vast indeed was ER's vision.

Eric's web pages at http://homepage.ntlworld.com/chessmaster/eric/Page_1.html are presently still online. Visit them now before they disappear.

New Website for the Yorkshire Dialect Society

The Yorkshire Dialect Society now has a new website at http://www.yorkshiredialectsociety.org.uk/.

As I mentioned in my post of January 2008, I've been a Life member of the Yorkshire Dialect Society for about forty years now. Established in 1897, it is the world's oldest surviving dialect society. It holds four meetings a year around the county and publishes both an annual Transactions and a Summer Bulletin.

For examples of Yorkshire dialect haiku see that post and my post in January 2009.

Graeme Garvey is the new editor of Transactions, the latest issue of which includes a tribute by Peter French for Stanley Ellis (1926 - 2009) who held the society together for many years. His voice is etched into my brain and he is very sadly missed. Another long-serving member Arnold Kellett (1926 - 2009) is also remembered.

Stan an' Arnold
tha'll be missed tha knaws
bu' nivver fret
get aff an' see Fred Brown
chiding Euclid's childer.

Gerald England.

The Sons of Camus Writers International Journal #6

Laboratooriumi --
grass in cracks under wooden doors
so quiet

Russia's Venice
from this one bridge
eight to be seen

fish market
next to the herring stall
second-hand books

These are just three of my contributions to the latest issue of this journal for writers over 55. You'll find in it nine "charcoals" based on photographs of Tallinn, Saint Petersburg and Helsinki.

John Light contributes a story which he says is extracted from a novel under construction. It is an enthralling piece and I enjoyed

I distrust experts. They see everything with a trained eye and the trained eye sees only what it has been trained to see ...

Raymond Humphreys has an essay on Poetry in Translation whilst Herbert Williams asks Who are the British?.

There is more artwork with a series of collages by Alan Perry as well as short stories, reviews and poetry to be found in the journal's 200 pages.

Editor, Ann J Davidson, is currently considering submissions for the next issue by email at scwijournal@gmail.com

Read the review of issue #5

Read reviews of issues ##1-4 on NHI Review

The Sons of Camus Writers International Journal
Rubini Publications
Gropious St #30
Limassol 3706
Cyprus
ISSN 1705-429X
CY£5 [€9; UK£6; US$10; CAN$15 including shipping]

James Kirkup (1918-2009)

James Kirkup, poet and translator, was born in South Shields on April 23, 1918. He died on May 10, 2009, aged 91

Most newspaper obituaries including the one in Times OnLine highlight his involvement in the Gay News blasphemy trial, and its sad that this is what he is most remembered for.

Some of us remember him more for his poetry and especially his contribution to the world of haiku and tanka.

I've had periodic correspondance with him since the 70s when he submitted poetry to me. THE GUITAR-PLAYER OF ZUIGANJI was first published in Headland #8.

I had previously published in a limited edition his "MANY-LINED POEM", one or two extant copies of which I have buried in a box somewhere. He was still sending me work from Andorra as recently as a couple of years ago.

The latest issue of The Tanka Journal #34 includes a tanka sequence THE WEDDING GROUP which begins

In one day's rare sun
they smile their assembled smiles
from the bright heaven
of otherworld garden's own
unplucked bouquet of summer.

As Patricia Prime writes in her review of his collection THE AUTHENTIC TOUCH (Bluechrome Publishing ISBN 1 904781 59 4)

Kirkup's poems are a privilege to experience, their generosity and musicality complementing and complicating the reader's own truths with each and every read. The poems strike a tone of light, deft whimsicality, but within the wit and whimsy, the wisdom and fine irony, is a ruthless commentary on the human condition.

His last published book was Marsden Bay and his publishers Red Squirrel Press are inviting people to a celebration of his life from 10.00 am - 12.00 midday on Saturday 13th June at South Shields Central Library.

I won't be there but I will be remembering him.

ABC Wednesday - C is for Cretan Cats

I contemplated for ages what to post for ABC Wednesday this week. I could have compiled any number of collections of cows or clocks. I could have considered visting Catalina or Chester, Christchurch or Cobh.


In the end, while browsing through files, I came across these three photographs of Cretan cats I'd created for the Cypriot magazine Creature Features. One of the photos appears in issue #16 along with three poems of mine on the subject of dogs.


For more C posts, visit ABC Wednesday.

Haiku Scotland #18

The latest issue of Haiku Scotland is #18.

£1 for four pages of A4 is not bad value. Despite its name the magazine is limited neither to haiku nor Scotland, publishing a variety of short verse from all over the world with Ireland and the USA predominant in this issue.

Featured poet is Devin Wayne Davis whose contributions include

perspective: overpass

rome of tomorrow;
parthenon off-ramps;
swap-meet coliseum;
car lot catacombs
beneath the freeway.

A couple of my favourites here are Helen Buckingham's update of Stevie Smith's famous image:

kids on the beach--
not waving
but phoning

and John W Sexton's

unsettled night
catching the cat's tail
in the kitchen door

The issue also includes a report on the results of the 2008 International Haiku Competiton by the Irish Haiku Society.

Haiku Scotland
2 Elizabeth Gardens
Stoneyburn
West Lothian
EH47 8BP
UK

ISSN 1744-7232
£1
cheques payable to "F. Henderson"

email Haiku Scotland

Read reviews of earlier issues on NHI Review.

...

The Poetry Church Vol 13 #4

The Poetry Church has changed editors. John Waddington-Feather has handed the reins over to Tony Reavill. So now instead of being published by Feather Books it comes from Moorside Works and Music.

So far the format is barely changed; apart from a group of poem-prayers at the beginning, the poems are published in alphabetic order of author's surnames rather than any thematic arrangement. Although a few reviewers have rightly criticised the standard of some of the work published in this magazine, which at times seems to be preaching to the converted, it has a number of excellent writers among its contributors.

A couple of my favourites from this issue are Dorothy Koenigsberger's WOLF ANGEL

... one appeared to me - as animal!
Caged wolf, in a dinky upstate zoo,

and Patricia Lucas' COLUMBINE

Her pink, white or mauve slender flowers
that grace late spring woodlands and hedgerows
will let their seed spread.

The issue ends with some short reviews and items of news.

The Poetry Church
Moorside Works and Music
Eldwick Crag Farm
High Eldwick
Otley Road
Bingley
BD16 3BB
UK
£3.50
Subscriptions £12 [US$25]
email The Poetry Church

Read reviews of earlier issues on NHI Review.

Creature Features #15

Subtitled "The Ark of Writing", Creature Features is a magazine of short stories, poetry and artwork whose subject matter relates to animals of all kinds. Indeed as well as cats and dogs, birds of all description, there are butterflys, caterpillars, rats, badgers, lions, walruses, elephants, crickets and hermit crabs all included.

Whilst this is definitely a magazine for lovers of animals, it probably isn't for lovers of fine literature. Though many of the articles are interesting and quite well written, few of the so-called haiku are correctly labelled thus and many of the pieces, especially the poetry, are what I would term "twee".

Nonetheless it contains some gems such as Herbert Williams' set of poems about a hawk

He brought us trophies
with pride, put
mangled remains
at our feet
and could not understand our horror.

Also excellent are Loraine Stayer's story GRANDMOTHER TO A DUCK and Dr. Adolf P Shvedchikov's chilling COME, WE'VE FOUND YOUR LOST CAT.

Creature Features
Rubuni Publications
Gropious Street No. 30
Limassol, 3076
Cyprus

ISSN 1450-3352
UK £5; USA $8; Europe €7; Australia $15; Canada $14; NZ $13
Subscriptions: 4 issues UK £20; USA $32; Europe €28; Australia $60; Canada $56; NZ $52

email Creature Features

Chanticleer Magazine #20

The editorial to Chanticleer Magazine #20 says that the magazine might have closed down after #18 but continues due to the amount of material the editor continues to receive and which he wants to publish.

It goes on a bit about the divide between "prestige" mags that are "safe" and the "little" mags that take risks. I prefer not to comment on the particulars of this often un-useful debate and look instead at the contents of the issue.

It starts with an intriquing and delightful poem by Erisa Linsky. It spreads over four pages and truly few magazines would devote that amount of space to one poem.

The magazine publishes several excellent poems, a bevy of reviews and lengthy article by the editor on the political philosopher Hobbes.

All of this makes for a magazine that is very different from the run-of-the-mill and long may it continue.

Chanticleer Magazine
6/1 Jamaica Mews
Edinburgh
EH3 6HN
UK

ISSN 1478-0704
£3
cheques payable to "Richard Livermore"

Read reviews of earlier issues on NHI Review

.

Shearsman ##77 & 78

The latest double issue of Shearsman is ##77-78.

Christopher Middleton provides a string of poems about birds

the barn owl on his beam,
kestrel swivelling on a shaft of air
...
the ways their plummage
fits the planes
or tunnels in the air,
...
lonesome the loon calls back birds of Ur,
birds of Babylon,
for brilliant breeds have perished probably.

Gregory O'Brien gives us a set of poems based on the Spanish exploration of Doubtful Sound, New Zealand in 1793.

Punta de Espinosa

Together we played the wind-tossed
waters of Wet Jacket Arm.

Carrie Etter takes us along McLean County Highway 39

tar shrugs goes to dirt
gravel's slow crunch over
winter with no hill for
frost to the horizon

Astrid van Baalen writes of The saddest tree at Kew

There are words that twist the finger raw
like only once, and yet again once more.

Janice Fixter has been to Staffa

There's a wooden boat lurching against the storm tide
and for the first time violins are stringing out Hebridean notes

inside a stranger's head.

I know the feeling, ever since August 1984, just the name brings the music into my head and the cry of "green tarpaulins" but that's another story.

Also impressive in this issue, of which I've mentioned but a fraction, are George Messo's translations of Birhan Keskin.

Shearsman
58 Velwell Road
Exeter
EX4 4LD
UK
ISSN 0260-8049
£8.50 [$13.50]
Subscriptions: 2 dble-issues £12 [Europe £14; RoW £15]
cheques [sterling only] payable to "Shearsman Books"

visit the website of Shearsman Books

Read an account of Issue ##75-76.

Read reviews of earlier issues on NHI Review.

The Seventh Quarry #8

The Seventh Quarry is a magazine firmly based in Swansea but featuring poets from other corners of the UK, Europe and Japan as well as North and South America.

Editor Peter Thabit Jones and Aeronwy Thomas have written a Walking Guide to Dylan Thomas's Greenwich Village, New York which can be downloaded as a PDF.

My favourite pieces from this issue include Frances White's LLWYNPERDID FARM which has some lovely lines

... the farmer's new ponies
ungroomed and half-broken
...
only the whack of a leaf-stripped fern for mastery
we were release from the farmyard
clattering on stony lanes
up through the pine forest
...
disappearing like a meteor over Rhondda.

and ZAIDE'S STATUE by Marilyn Mohr

My grandfather sits on Seventh Avenue,
enthroned in bronze, sitting at his machine,
...
a monument to all the workers,
who wore themselves to thin cloth,
laboring in this noisy rag trade district.

Wes Magee describes BLEAKNESS ON BLAKEY RIDGE in February

an abandoned car lies in a deep drift.

Swallowed, the ram's carcass
and a roadside sign that read
'Drive with care. 50 lambs killed last year'.

#9 is due out January 2009

The Seventh Quarry
Dan-y-bryn
74 Cwm Level Road
Brynhyfryd
Swansea
SA5 9DY
UK

ISSN 1745-2236
£3.50 [$10]
Subscriptions £7 [$20] annually
UK cheques payable to "Peter Thabit Jones"
[USA International Money Orders]

Visit the website of Peter Thabit Jones

Curlew ##59-60

The latest issues of Curlew are ##59-60.The first is subtitled

THE CHILDREN OF PARADISE
A memoir of the children who grew up after the war; with thanks to those have contributed.

It starts with editor J Precious' recollection of her time at Corsham in the 1950s under principal Clifford Ellis. One of the art teachers there was William Scott who taught her painting.

This leads on to John Younger who studied art at Croydon School of Art. Blindness forced him to abandon art in favour of English and he became a lecturer in the School of English at Leeds University. He retired to Lincolnshire in 1991 and poetry has since been his principle creative interest. He writes using a computer fitted with a voice synthesiser. Many of his poems have an artist theme like his HOMAGE to James Ensor (1860-1949) which begins

Half-British demi-Belge, his mixed strands
made a world where fact and fable coexist
and interact with the delicate, as when
he paints himself in a hat enfleuri,
and gross, with devils Dzitts and Hihanoux.

The issue ends with some previously published essays from the 70s on the subject of early small press magazines such as Bogg and Krax.

#60 is a more general issue of the mag with poems from Paul Tristram, Steve Sneyd, Tom Kelly, Will Daunt, Alan Hardy, Joyce Walker, myself and others.

Curlew
Hare Cottage
Kettlesing
Harrogate
HG3 2LB
UK

ISSN 1463-8347
£2.50 post paid
£5 overseas
no foreign currency, cheques nor stamps accepted.

Read my review of issues ##57-58
Read reviews of earlier issues on NHI Review

...

Handshake #75

Handshake is an irregular magazine normally consisting of a single sheet of A4 with notices and mini-reviews on one side and a selection of sf-related poetry on the other.

This issue is a special one and consists of 12 pages. There are more than fifty poems included from poets such as Cardinal Cox, Peter Day, Bryn Fortey, Bill West, John Light, Geoff Stevens and A C Evans.

My favorites are Paul Tristram's THE ALIENS HAVE LANDED - here's the middle verse

The aliens have landed
they are up on the moon.
They'd come down to Cornwall
but there isn't any room.
The siamese twins life
is sadly falling apart.
Her sister will not let her
give away their heart.

and Raymond Leonard's NIGHT IN CHINGLE HALL

...
Ghosts perched on posts made precarious hosts
while they gleamed and screamed for a fight.
Devils from high levels performed crazy revels
by swooping and looping like kites.
Ghouls on one-legged stools sat crying like fools
then twisted and misted with fright.
Wizards and lizards and spooks with no gizzards
beamed while we screamed for the light.
...

Editor, John Francis Haines, despite the eye problems that prevented him attending the recent Zimmercon event in Chester, is getting on well, using his all-seeing right eye. He tells me that the next bumper edition will be #100, although that'll be a few years in the future yet. I'm looking forward to it.

Handshake
5 Cross Farm
Station Road North
Fearnhead
Warrington
WA2 0QG
UK

available for sae

visit the information web page for Handshake

Read reviews of earlier issues on NHI Review OnLine.

...

Thorny Locust Vol 17 Summer/Fall

The latest issue of Thorny Locust is Vol 17 Summer/Fall.

It has a full-colour cover for, I think, the first time, with artwork by assistant editor, Dave Paarmann, which runs over to the back-cover.

It is stated that

In this issue writers assert that humans, from pet lovers to rapists, do not follow any sensible rules to live by.

Make of it what you will. Not all this enthralled me much but there were highlights such as Charles Cantrell's poem about a 3 a.m. nude, J Jaime Parajo's alphabetcised political primer, Maril Crabtree's CONFESSIONAL and WALDEN POND by B Z Niditch. The best though was saved till last - the one bit of prose amongst the poems, a story by Myrtle Archer about a group of old ladies battling with their menfolk's use of viagra. It is a superb piece of humour with a sting in the tail.

Thorny Locust
PO Box 32631,
Kansas City,
MO 64171-5631,
USA
ISSN 1094-0154
$5
Subscription $15 pa
checks payable to Silvia Kofler

Read reviews of earlier issues on NHI Review OnLine.