CANVAS I

CANVAS CANVAS I, 2021, poetry, prose, essays, photography, painting, interviews and features.

Foreword Canvas was founded in reaction to the rich environment of literary and artistic creativity we’re surrounded by at Cambridge, and specifically Fitzwilliam.

This selection encompasses all modes of creative thought: work that depicts fragments of daily experience, asks questions about identity, grants us a new vision of the familiar. Poetry is included alongside interview and essay, painting alongside prose: each offering unique and yet complementary perspectives. There is no unifying theme which we’ve used to describe this body of work, and we hope this grants each reader the freedom to view the issue in a slightly different way, find pieces that appeal to their own experience, and offer them a fresh mode of perception.

This issue was made possible by the kind help of Fitzwilliam Literary Society: Hero Chalmers, Subha Mukhurji, and Dunstan Roberts. We’d like to express our gratitude to them for helping us start the publication. We’re very grateful, also, to Adele Thomas and Lee Johnson for agreeing to be a part of our first issue.

We hope you enjoy reading the first issue of Canvas – we’re already excited for the next one.

Will Randell

[Cover art by Lee Johnson], After Constable’s Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows, 2020 oil, oil pastel on canvas, 30 x 40 cm (12 x 16 inches) Private collection, UK

CANVAS I - CONTRIBUTORS Oona Lagercrantz, (1) Caitlin van Bommel, (3) Delilah Dennett, (5) Isabelle Fahey, (7) Georgina Buckle, (11,12,35, 55) Tali Kauffman, (13) Hassan Raja (18) Alexandra Jarvis, (19) Karolina Fílová, (30) Saul Barrett, (36) Tom Savage, (37) Tabitha Awre, (39) Elif Karanis, (40) Yiorgos Karidis, (41) Samantha Thompson, (47, 61) Bill Lea, (49) Scarlett Ryan, (52) Thalia Witherford (53) With thanks to our guests, Lee Johnson, (25) Adele Thomas (55) Editorial: W.Randell, H. Duncan, A. Jarvis, S. Ryan.

1

OONA LAGERCRANTZ The Anemones When the anemones call me under the ice among the leaves where the air is no longer – I pick up too slow But the anemones call again, and I answer and beg – please fill me with breath and melt every drop sweep me away, take me anyplace else make me your ocean, oh I haven’t swum in years The anemones are silent, was it all a mistake? for no earthquakes or whirlwinds move me who is nothing, there is nothing, but a sound – is that a sound? the anemones are listening

3

CAITLIN VAN BOMMEL

DELILAH DENNETT Leviathan Waves arrive to greet me, as constant as the Tides of day; longing for the sun’s bristled breath, They pierce the lungs of night, sordid, cold, Collapsing into the skeleton of sky Drowning in the ocean’s rippling stomach, Moving with the force of underwater angels; As I lie still, waking on the edge of the world, You move with the force of thunderous applause, Approving me as your spectator, Although I know not what it is I see That leftover of night lurking in the shadows between crests, That slither of bone peeping out from foam-tipped crevices, The pale stretch of skin gliding over the creature, Stuck somewhere inside, that I cannot see; What monster sleeps beneath your carcass of bloodied water, Beating down on the beach like a lifeless corpse Staring at me with multiple eyes, glinting like Shards of glass, from the deep?

No answer. The waves crash in, and recede, The seagull sprouts his holy song, The angels draw the curtain of night, And I sit here, waiting for hell to let loose.

5

Meditations #13 Sunburnt whispers caress my skin, As the cathedral opens its doors, its entry to damnation, Across the street. And I am caught in the rapture of morning rites, Abducting me to the church where no idol dies, The crossing of clouds in sunlight hours Where ships cross their arcs, floundering in the sea of air, Without striking timber matches, Alighting a stairway carcass of oak skeletons, Branches crest fallen into sundry heaps of Snapping bodies, flagellations unto calloused skins Unsheathed by the leering hands of fire.

But out the wrath, the raging screams of flames, The quenching thirst of dry tongues and lips With the soft caresses of water. Why not take the path Of lesser thorns, the lighter breaths to heaven?

Why burden yourself with the torture of braecken roads, Where grit sinks its teeth into the tender flesh of treading feet?

Passport Poem Born in Beijing, Eyes the colour of ripe sunsets, ready to pluck From an acre of sky, stretching over The land of nowhere.

Hair, dark, sprawling in waves down the length Of her back, Coiled like the spines of writhing trees.

They float midair, crested and breathing With the lungs of the ocean.

Skin a golden yellow, flaxseeds Falling from their flowers in a grove On a sunny day where the light greets the heather, Mottled arms, little flecks darting into the tissue, 5’3, teetering onto 5’4, but not quite tall enough To reach up to the heavenly things above her head That have followed her all her life.

Born in Beijing, where dreams masquerade As figments of reality, As the things we know them to be.

You can go through now.

7

ISABELLE FAHEY A Mother’s Curse

Growing up, there were all types of people, living all types of

lives, recognised and self-recognised and socialised and clinically, compartmentalising-ly understood, and then there was my mother. Our mother. My/our mother. A woman, though I never would have known it; simply a person living a life I did not deign to comprehend. She materialised when I needed her, and would disappear at a moment’s notice when I didn’t, except she would never give notice. She kept us guessing. In my memory, I could go days without seeing her, and maybe that’s how it was.

That childhood is a lie, I do not consider it controversial to assume. That there is truth to be found at all in the haze is perhaps more enigmatic.

My half-sister has yet to be broken by the warm, oppressive scent of the train station, although the announcement that our particular journey has been delayed some forty minutes might just do it.

She has half my mother’s smile and, somehow, half my father’s wit. Her not-quite-new suitcase rests against her prosthetic leg, and the way it glints in the dim 20-watt flickering light convinces me that she polished it special, specifically for this day. She is enamoured with what she calls the ‘inherent romanticism of the railway’. Typically, I call it an ‘underfunded disgrace to so-called British values’ or, more simply, ‘classism at its finest’. However, Maria is a decade my junior, and so I make certain allowances for her. Moreover, she is a product of her father, as I am of mine; it seems our half-shared, half-ephemeral mother hardly factors into the equation at all. That is, perhaps, where the problem lies.

There are too many people on the platform, and among them far too many smokers. They bare their teeth as the robotic carousel of announcements starts up again, competing with the rush of air as new trains that are not ours but might as well be struggle to a halt

Isabelle Fahey

at opposite platforms. A woman in drab greys and blues curses, most likely at the delay, but I like to imagine she is reading my thoughts and that she too has now sensed the rising air pressure, the heightened tension in our huddle of strangers and in our nation. I imagine she is hearing every word as I think it, and I imagine she is falling in love with my mind. I unnerve myself. I try to stop thinking.

But I can’t.

So I count. I reach three hundred before my mind begins to wander, and then I switch to Spanish. I only manage to cien, and then resort to French, backwards, to zéro, to nothingness. And I realise I have forgotten how to convey the negative. So I stop. I change track. If anything, I resume.

I remember how my mother used to sing to me, and how our mother used to sing to Maria. Like a bird in flight, she sung with freedom and just a hint of fear, high lilting intonations in a language I couldn’t yet speak. It didn’t soothe me. I would recoil into myself, into numbers, into tangibility and things I could control. In part, I was relieved when Maria came into the world, because it granted me my seniority. At only ten years old, I felt I had conquered the unimaginable.

Maria liked the singing. She imitated the shrill sounds, or hummed as she did now, adding rhythm to my train of thought. I use it to ground me, like an earth wire, like a lightning rod. Like Franklin’s kite string on a dark and stormy night. I don’t like taking up space the way she does, the way our mother taught her to, but folding in on myself like this is the coalescence of gold leaf in a bird’s nest. An empire, once, now trampled underfoot. A finch is lodged in Maria’s throat, and I must admit it imitates a lyre faultlessly, but most days I can’t stand it.

9 A Mother’s Curse

I’m shaking, although the station is insufferably humid, the air stagnant to the point of volatility. I start counting again, alternating between Latin and Arabic, mouthing the words as my mother taught me. My pronunciation would be precise now, almost elegant, if I spoke life into the syllables, but I know it would cause nothing but frustration to hear my delicacy drowned out and simply washed away, like errant secrets on a stifling summer afternoon. I understand implicitly that Maria had not learnt the languages that I had for the simple reason that she did not need it, whereas for me it was the relationship between fog and the moors, low cloud and the fens, clear skies and the sea. Not simply complementary, but something more. Something sombre, and inevitable.

We are neither of us like our mother, not really, not where it counts. I took her multilingualism, Maria her voice, and in doing so I suppose we silenced her, negated her influence through our claims upon her. What was left, in the end? What remained? The crackle of flame in a fireplace that had long since gone out; a stain on a coffee table upended and sheathed in tarpaulin. The echo of a pigeon’s coo reverberating through a chimney, sealed. A woman, once. A person I could not claim to know, though I had every right to.

I try to disrupt myself but it is to no avail. There aren’t enough languages in the world to distract from my feelings once I have unearthed them, to detract from the brutality that my own mind can inflict. For in the end, birthrights are fickle things. They cannot be tampered with or touched by those to whom they belong, but to the world they are fair game, little more than a challenge or a threat, depending; a butterfly balanced on a knife’s edge, capricious as the tide, the forecast printed dreary in the morning paper. The bequests of my mother seem unsurmountable, and I am not ready to say goodbye.

Isabelle Fahey

So yes, perhaps childhood is a comfortable lie, like oversized clothes on an overcast day, like coming in from the cold, blood-red nose and all, like Mozart in a waiting room, like something I will never feel again. But when we part, cool hands pressed to the window pane, shallow breaths and nervous glances, what we leave behind is fingerprints, mere smudges on an endless autumn train.

11

Georgina Buckle

Georgina Buckle

Georgia’s Orange Tree image??

Georgina Buckle

Georgina Buckle

Another of Georgie’s images?

13

TALI KAUFFMAN

Inheritance

I

have an inheritance that I don’t want. Mom sits down on my bed. She explains the details to me in loose terms, avoiding certain details.

‘This was your grandfather’s, now it’s yours’ ‘I don’t want it.’

‘You already have it.’

My clothes are scattered across the room. An empty pizza box on my desk besides a stack of plates. The light is too strong. I pull the blankets up. She opens the curtains farther.

‘Come on. Let’s take you to the office.’

I’ve come home for Christmas break, a short visit. Afterwards, I’ll go back to my apartment, back to work. I’ve been feeling ill lately.

Mom picks clothes up off the floor and shakes them off before folding them. She helps me get dressed. I could do it myself, of course — I’m an adult. But I’m feeling a bit ill, like I said.

Mom walks me to the car. She asks how I’m feeling.

I say ‘Pineapple.’

She says, ‘Let’s go collect your inheritance.’

I’m strapped into the passenger seat as we dart along the highway.

Cars like silver bugs gleaming in the distant light. My window’s open a crack. The smell of fertilizer. I see freshly ploughed fields and rolling hills painted grey. We drive in silence. At one point, I turn the radio on. She turns it off.

I should really be getting back home, back to work. I have deadlines. Lots of work. It’s tough work. Where are we going? We’re in the car, I know that.

She gives me a look of concern. My eyes dart away.

Can she read my thoughts?

Pop was given his inheritance by his Dad. Pop used to talk about him like he was Christ’s own. When I was little, we would watch “Animal Planet” until late at night. One time, during the

Tali Kauffman

commercials, he pulled out a small metal flask. I asked what it was.

He let me smell. It burned my nostrils. He chuckled and started telling me a story about his father. Pop said that when he was a kid his Dad caught him smoking cigarettes with kids from the neighbourhood. Pop’s Dad made him smoke the entire pack. He described him as some great moral leader.

I’m trying to focus on the road, I start to feel queasy listening to myself.

I need to pee and I’m tired and I don’t want to get out of bed. But, wait, I’m already out of bed. Where are we going again? They say you are what you eat. I eat cardboard. Tastes like pineapple. Maybe I’ll watch some Kubrick. Bitta sex. Bitta violence. Flick to the next tab. I can watch some YouTube in bed. But I’m in the car. In the car.

I remember other fragments about my grandfather. When Mom would drop me off at Pop’s, he would give me a chore to do.

‘Rake up all the leaves in the yard into piles. I’ll give you a dollar.’

Burning air. I blew on my cold hands. Soggy brown leaves. Mud all over my jeans. I could hear birds cawing on dead tree branches.

Open sky. Pop made Bolognese and meatballs inside. We watched the “Dora the Explorer” movie. He fell asleep halfway through. The movie ended. I was seven. Very sleepy. I sat and glanced at him. He snored. I didn’t want to wake him. I just watched the TV screensaver. The little Sony emblem bobbing across the frame.

Evening light coming through the blinds. I chewed on my sippy cup. I liked to chew on things. My teeth were coming in. The chewing made a squealing noise against the plastic. Pop burst up and reached for me. He held me. I pulled away.

‘Were you crying?’ he asked.

‘No’ I said and showed him the sounds you could make chewing on the sippy cup. ‘Ah’, he said ‘the crying must have been in my dream.’

15 Inheritance

We take a sharp turn. Someone honks. We swerve. The rear of the car wobbles to the side before righting itself. We drive on.

‘Are you okay?’ she says.

‘Fine, fine. Same as you.’

‘And more generally?’

‘Fine, fine. Though I should really be getting back, you know. I’ve got a bunch of work to do.’

She nods.

‘Look, I’m happy to accompany you to this office, but, like I told you, whatever this inheritance stuff is — I don’t want it.’

Mom forces a smile. She won’t look at me, she tightens her grip on the steering wheel.

Pop trained with the Marines, like his Dad. Six months in, he was honourably discharged. Mom mentioned something about shock treatment one time when I overheard her whispering to my aunt.

You break down easily if they don’t build you right. If you’re built to break. Built to break. Brake. Where are we going again?

We used to play scrabble at his care home. He lived on the bottom floor, in the nursing centre. I took the elevator to get to the basement. The elevator walls were padded with red leather. There was a key code to get into his ward. They didn’t want people getting out, apparently. The door was sticky. Inside, it smelled of mildew and old beer. Stagnant, warm air. As I walked down the hallway, sacks of skin sat in wheelchairs, with eyes like reptiles, that followed me down the hall. Silent. Immobile. Dozens and dozens of eyes following. I couldn’t look them in the eye. I stared at the teal hospital carpeting. Dull. Fading.

A nurse said, ‘Oh, you Charlie’s little one. I seen you in the pictures he has by his bed. He’ll be happy to see you. He talks about you all the time.’

I always forget this nurse’s name. I should visit the care home again sometime soon.

Tali Kauffman

‘We should visit Pop sometime soon,’ I say.

Mom shakes her head.

We’re in traffic now. There’s a BMW dealership by the side of the road. A bunch of industrial complexes. A footlocker. Huge supermarkets. Men in high visibility vests are gathered around a hole. A jackhammer rumbles in the warm concrete. The car vibrates. I nod at a guy with Oakley sunglasses as we pass. The traffic feeds into the vague outline of the town. A tow truck speeds by in the lane beside us. It goes right through a puddle, mud splatters our car.

Where are we going? We’re in the car. In the car.

Before the many care homes, Pop lived with us. Everyday he saw bats circling the couch he called his bed, and in the evening he whispered little things to mom that would make her leave the room. I made an offhanded remark about the Ethiopian children we were studying at school and his eyes watered and he held my hand for half an hour. I would steer clear of the living room. When I went in, I wouldn’t be able to leave for the rest of the day. I would get bored and want to go play outside, but feel too guilty. Pop tried to tell me more stories about his father. He started telling me about the first Hawaiian pizza he had with his Dad. As Italian-Americans, they were morally offended by it. But Pop couldn’t finish the story. He started rambling and after a while he became incoherent and Mom told me to go upstairs to my room. I stopped halfway up the stairs and asked Mom what Pop’s Dad was like.

She shook her head.

‘He was not a nice man. He was jealous.’

‘Of who?’

‘Your grandfather.’

‘Why?’ She didn’t reply.

Us kids usually had dinner in the kitchen. Mom stopped eating with us altogether. Pop couldn’t walk. He lived on the couch. One afternoon, Mom called me downstairs. The living room door was

17 Inheritance

closed. Her arms were crossed. She spoke to me in a hushed tone.

‘I can’t help him. This is something just for boys. I need you to help him do this.’

She handed me an empty water jug. The door opened a crack, and she pushed me in. I don’t remember anything past the doorway.

Nor does Pop — I don’t think he remembers anything from that year.

When a social services car finally pulled up to the house, Pop refused to leave. I murmured some words of encouragement and said something about love and he agreed to let me walk him to the car. I didn’t really have the strength to hold him up, I was only twelve. They drove off.

The car is out of traffic now. We drift the streets, in town.

Businessmen in suits looking down from their offices. In steel and glass steeples. A billboard has been torn up, the shampoo model’s face has been split in half. Black graffiti on a dumpster.

Built to break. Please brake. Where are we going? I’m in the car.

In the car.

We pull into a car park. I see a huge white building. Steam rising off the top and into the grey above. An ambulance skirts behind us and stops in front of the building.

‘Are you ready?’ Mom says. ‘Still feeling okay?’

I nod.

‘Let’s see about your inheritance, then.’

Hassan Raja

“...one of those rare times where the photo exceeeds the actual scene in beauty...”

19

ALEXANDRA JARVIS

The Lady-Writer, or, The Perils of the Schlossverlust in the off-season

The crisp autumn air was the same as always. Perhaps it was me

that was changing. I took my final turn around the grounds and headed inside as the day began to draw to a close. It was my last night before I travelled further east; this was my last day of retreat.

The hotel had certainly provided enough of that, nestled high up in the Schlossverlust mountains so as to be utterly neglected by the cities nearby. The Hotel, a pretty, sprawling construction named Schloss Rückzug, was that kind of place.

I knew the proprietor – the man was nearing the end of a spell of good health, and would indeed be dead three years after my last visit. This would prove to be my last visit, as I began to prefer the air in the south, and not the east. I knew him as Kurtz; he was a good man, in spite of his vices; this was the most that could be expected of any man.

We dined on that final night with the guests in the main ballroom.

There was a mere six of us, a paltry affair compared to what used to be. This was the effect of the war – I refer here to the first. Little was expected of the second; at least, it came as a surprise to me, but then I have had little time for politics since the leg incident in Hapsburg. Kurtz had lost his two sons two decades earlier, and his wife shortly afterwards.

I suggested a game of whist, which seemed to his fancy, and we roped in the other guests.

Altogether, there was myself and Kurtz, and two other gentlemen – a Major something or other, and a Lord of some type – and then two women. One was the companion of the other; this latter spoke softly and mostly to her aide. It is my belief that she was there recovering from something. Indeed, as we all were.

Alexandra Jarvis

Conversation ensued, as it is wont to do, until we were talking more than playing. This was fine; it suited the purpose well enough. I learnt that the Lord was travelling, on business from England, although he was vague as to what exactly. I took a dislike to him myself, as he consistently steered the conversation back to the weighty subjects of rearmament and the crises in Berlin. I deemed this simultaneously unsuitable for the ladies present, and unhelpful insofar as lightening the mood.

The Major proved my surprising ally, engaging the women instead in talk from the Paris salons where he had, until recently, been able to spend some time.

“Of course, being here makes quite the difference to one’s countenance, removing oneself from the bustle of such an environment.” He clapped Kurtz on the shoulder affably; they had become great friends over the course of this evening. “And yet, there’s such an energy there, one can become quite addicted.”

“Indeed, that’s the very thing,” the older woman cried – she was the companion to the younger. “It is as draining as it is rejuvenating. Therein lies the paradox of many of these great pleasures.”

“It is just so wherever you go,” the proprietor agreed. “Such is why, I feel, quite humbly, that we need this sort of retreat to remove oneself whenever one sees fit.”

We all agreed at this. The older woman was about to speak, but her madame laid a hand on her arm.

The reader will allow me to make this small assumption about this young woman – in all her ways and manners I read nothing other than a Frenchwoman, and a noble one at that, and her physiognomy (forgive me, as I am yet a man of a forgotten age) was all too pleasing to the eye and mental faculties.

21 The Lady-Writer

In effect, of these, she was not lacking.

“I can see you studying me, Doctor.” She spoke now, I know not if for the first time.

Guilty at having been caught, or perhaps relieved to be able to question her directly, I coughed and bowed my head.

“My apologies, Madame. My habits fade with some reluctance, even so far from home and my usual environs. I was merely speculating as to what such a refined woman as you is doing travelling through such a remote region as these mountains, particularly at this time of year.”

“I am perhaps less refined that you are used to, Doctor,” she laughed a little, easily, “and I am undoubtedly less so than I ought to be by the standards of many. Let’s say that I travel to this region for family.”

“And is this the truth?”

“No, and yet what business is it of yours?” She picked up her glass and took a sip. “I believe the fiction of the age may paint the detective as a familiar sight in such remote bourgs as this, but I see as yet no corpse in sight. I rather see you fancying yourself as an amateur sleuth, Doctor, in lieu of our need for an official of the law.”

She spoke in fluting tones and with such a smile that it was impossible to take offence. Her German was impeccable, without the hint of an accent.

“Perhaps, Madame. Humour me, then, and my too-inquisitive spirit. I know already much about my man Kurtz here, and I fear the stories of the Major will have us remembering too much of that nostalgic youth Lord Elmswood is so fond of.”

Alexandra Jarvis

“Alright.” She resolutely placed the glass back down on the table. “I travel for my own purposes, and they be many and multitudinous.

Let’s speak first of writing. I do a fair bit of this.”

“A noble pastime.”

“Far from engaging in murder most foul, I prefer to conjure up the spectacles from the safety of our more civilised age.”

“How fascinating,” the Lord interjected. “Are you one of these … lady-writers?”

“The term is lacking but I will accept it, on the condition that we never speak of it again.” The woman nodded graciously.

“I have always been apprehensive of the term, myself,” the Lord continued. “I simply adore the pastime, but I consider it a complement to my other duties. I find inspiration from that; I simply don’t know what I would do were I to have to write as my sole engagement.”

“It is far from my sole engagement, my good sir,” the woman replied. “Although I do appreciate where your confusion may arise from. When one is so engrossed in one’s own affairs, the plights of another is of little interest or relevance. How else do you imagine so many writers have made murderous monsters of other civilised men and women of our age?”

“This is precisely the attitudes that caused us such issues in the aftermath –,” the Lord began, but thankfully Kurtz indicated for the tables to be drawn away and for a nightcap to be provided.

I moved my chair closer to the Madame, who sat surveying me as people shuffled about the room, getting their drink and circling in on closer conversations as the larger chandeliers were snuffed.

23 The Lady-Writer

“I apologise for the words of the good lord, Madame, if they have riled you. I can only hope he remains less abrasive once he makes his re-entry to polite society.”

“How perplexing,” she replied. “I was under the impression that we had never left polite society.”

“This is the danger that comes from travelling out from the bounds of what we are used to, and what we can understand,” I said, attempting to placate her. I fear, however, that this was not what I achieved. Her face clouded over, and she replied rather curtly.

“Do inform me, Doctor, when you have reached the bounds of what you can understand, and I will hasten to explain it to you.”

The Lord began to approach with two glasses, and handed one to her. “I hope the Doctor isn’t perplexing you with more talk of sleuthing or writing for the common good.”

“Not in the slightest,” she smiled, her face clear once again. “We were merely discussing the bounds and conventions of polite society, and what we understand by this.”

“How fascinating,” the Lord said. “I always find that it is in leaving convention aside that one encounters the more radical individuals and rationales, than one would ever normally meet.”

“Are lady-writers perhaps few and far between in Hertfordshire, my good Lord?” She said.

“I believe that there are enough for current taste; let us be done with the matter.” The Lord chuckled a little into his drink, sharing a glance with me.

I noticed a peculiar look on the Madame’s face, but she returned

Alexandra Jarvis

her glass to one of the servants and cleared her throat. “Indeed.

Goodnight, gentlemen, it has been a pleasure.”

She took her leave of us all, and I have to say I was sorely missing her presence for the time between her departure and when I took my own leave to retire, make my notes, and prepare for bed.

I had been hoping to meet with her in the morning before I left for the border, but on descending for breakfast I was informed, when asking after her, that she had her companion had taken the 6.22 tram to the Verlustbahn station, and from there had gone on to destinations unknown. I also learnt that this had always been their plan, and so fleeting concerns that I had caused upset the night before calmed.

She and her companion were pushed further from my mind when commotion over breakfast alerted us to the fact that the Lord Elmswood had been found dead in his chambers.

I was able to examine the body and confer with the local authorities; he had been stabbed several times with some force, and had also sustained a major blow to the head. Not knowing the area, I knew little of any suspects already known to the police, and so had little to offer to them when they interviewed me. They delayed my departure by just under an hour, but this left me at liberty to speak with the lobby boy. I confirmed that the Madame and her companion had left safely – I felt a shudder of terror at the realisation that they had traversed the very same halls as the murderer. That he could have been lurking around the corner as they returned to their chambers, entirely innocent of what horror was about to befall their dining companion, two rooms down the hallway.

I said a silent prayer, both to the departed Lord, and to guide the Madame and her companion on their way.

25

Guest Artist Lee Johnson ‘After Constable’.

Artist

image of some kind??

Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows (after Constable), 2020 oil on panel in artist’s frame

Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows II (after Constable), 2020 oil on panel 22.3 x 30 cm (9 x 12 inches)

27

Painters often make works after other artists’ paintings. Part tribute,

part learning the complexities of picture making. These versions painted after John Constable’s masterpiece Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows (first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1831, and now in the Tate collection), are an attempt to understand this curious picture.

The painting is well known for its rainbow, that dominates the composition, framing the cathedral’s majestic spire. But something is wrong, meteorologically speaking. The light source in the painting comes in from the right, with the sunlight clearly hitting the cathedral’s west face and casting shadows to the left of the picture. However, for a rainbow to be visible the sun needs to be directly behind the viewer. So why would Constable - a painter with detailed knowledge of weather systems and meteorological phenomena - paint a rainbow that clearly didn’t belong in the sky within which it is painted?

The reason lies with Constable’s dear friend John Fisher. Indeed, it was Fisher to whom Constable wrote ‘the landscape painter who does not make his skies a very material part of his composition neglects to avail himself of one of his greatest aids. It will be difficult to name a class of landscape in which the sky is not the ‘key note’, the ‘standard of scale’ and the chief ‘organ of sentiment’.’

After the death of Constable’s wife Maria Bicknell in 1828, he wrote to Fisher ‘the face of the world is totally changed to me.’ Fisher invited the grieving painter to stay with him again in Salisbury - he and Maria honeymooned there after they wed in 1816 - and encouraged him to again make a subject of the Cathedral. The ‘chaos’ of the turbulent weather in the painting symbolises Constable’s turmoil and grief at the loss of his wife. Constable’s work is not noted for its symbolism - he wanted to move painting away from the romantic and more towards what was really there: ‘old rotten planks; slimy posts; and brickwork I love such things’. In 1831, after two years of work, the painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy, but there was no recorded mention of the rainbow. Four days after the painting was exhibited Fisher died, and Constable never visited Salisbury again.

After the exhibition had ended the painting returned to Constable’s studio, and in tribute to his dear friend he added the rainbow - which comes to rest on Leadenhall, Fisher’s house. Signifying hope and the life that lives on after the storms have passed, the rainbow, framing the cathedral to the right, works in conjunction with the ash tree - often seen as a symbol of resurrection, of life after death - framing the cathedral to its left.

Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows remained in Constable’s studio, where he continued to work on it, until his death in 1837. The painting was the culmination of his life’s work, and displays the joys and sorrows of a life lived, and was only completed by his death. Lee Johnson.

After Constable’s Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows, 2020 oil, oil pastel on canvas Private collection, UK

29

KAROLINA FÍLOVÁ

Love Letters to the Manager

A single word flew through his head as he tossed the book across

the room, its pages buzzing like insect wings towards the copy-and-printer machine: Enough. The book’s flight was cut short by impact, a hollow thud of paper meeting plastic, and it dropped dead, crashing face first onto the wooden floor. Enough, he’d had enough. He stood up from his desk and walked over to the copy-and-printer machine, floorboards groaning underneath every step, and reached for the fallen book, letting out the mandatory pained puff of cigarette smoke.

He turned the book around in his hands and inspected the damage; he couldn’t afford to reimburse another lost book, or another ripped book, or another book stained with tears of rage.

The pages it had fallen onto, pages 156 and 157, end of chapter 10 and start of chapter 11, just where he decided he’d had enough, were crumpled and dusty from caressing the neglected floorboards. The spine was a tiny bit bent and the corner of the front cover ribbed - mild damage, nuisances best tolerated.

He turned the book to its back cover and frowned at the author, who frowned back at him in washed out colours.

“It’s always authors,” he spat out, and then he actually spat at the floorboards to emphasise his point, “they’re always written by authors.”

It had been gnawing at his eyes for years, decades even, exacerbated by the countless novels he’d leafed through in his subterranean room in the post office. Gripping, thrilling, enthralling pageturners. Number 1 New York Times Best-Sellers. With every line he read, every Garamond letter, he felt his irises rotting away and his pupils spilling out like ink stains. What if they started dripping out of his eyes and splattered all over the envelopes and parcels?

31 Love Letters to the Manager

“Why are you so boring,” he hissed at the author, who, in an obvious effort to uphold the appropriate demeanour, sat up straight in a black turtleneck and metal-rimmed glasses, piercing the camera lens with a serene, mysterious scowl. A prime exemplar of the Deplorable Species.

At that moment in time, in his subterranean room in the post office, he condemned all the authors of the world. Why did stories always have to be written by authors? This one was supposed to be about vampires, about crime, about an ageing detective and an elusive mastermind villain. The author was neither of those, so how could he ever truly portray them, live them? The novel was bound to be a lie, an attempt to capture what could never be expressed from the inevitably narrow viewpoint of an author’s life.

And it was at that precise moment in time, in his subterranean room in the post office, nails dug into the last book he would ever read, that he decided to write the first story not written by an author. Who could be more qualified than he was? He had nothing to wait for, nothing to forget or recall before he could start, and so he dived right in and let the subterranean room engulf him completely, drowning out any hint of the outside world for hours, even, after the end of his shift.

Not every single hint of the outside world had been pushed out of the room, of course. There were still the envelopes, stacks and stacks of envelopes sorted into neat piles, and in every envelope there was a folded piece of paper and on every piece of paper there was ink, and it was through the ink that the outside world snuck into the subterranean room, in snippets, sentiments, syllables. He could tell from the envelope itself, usually, what it was smuggling to some distant corner of the world - the invoices, the bank statements, the holiday greetings, the complaints, and who-could-forget, the love letters, they all had a certain air about them, captured in the texture of their paper and the crispness of its bends and in

Karolina Fílová

the pauses of breath between the lines in the recipients’ addresses.

The envelopes protected the outside world from leaking out into the post office, and doubtlessly so - but he had an armoury of his own to bring to the battle, years and years of experience. He knew how to open a closed envelope and then seal it again so that nobody could tell the difference; a skill deeply prised in the profession, nothing short of a trade secret. Apart from that, he had a copy-and-printer machine, with a small dent in the side where it met the last book he would ever read, and that was all he needed.

He leafed through the stack of envelopes on his desk. There was always enough material to work with, no matter how thin a stack was, as long as there was a love letter. A few envelopes in, he smiled. Flowery cursive handwriting and tiny hearts in the place of dots, a purposefully subtle whiff of perfume, a couple of tears.

Rarely did they get more blatant than that. He even recognised the addressee, Mr. Flaubert of 56 Affection Avenue, for this letter was part of a series - a conspicuous affair that never seemed to falter in its striking devotion. He had never opened any of Mr. Flaubert’s letters, of course, for he held sincere respect for privacy.

The rest of the envelopes seemed impeccably uninteresting, so much that they held no promise of a story, let alone the sort of story he had in mind - a thrilling, sensational, intoxicating experience, much like the New York Times Best-Sellers, but even better. He rarely bothered to read the addresses; the bank logos and Calibri names gave away enough, and although bank statements and invoices could be indicative of stories, they could never tell them, not in the way he needed them to.

Then, at long last, an envelope with an address deeply engraved in it with what must have been a cheap ballpoint pen, and handwriting much like that directed to Mr. Flaubert, only lacking in cordiality. He leaned closer to the envelope and sniffed at the address;

33 Love Letters to the Manager

he was right, it was the bitter smell of sticky, promotional ink. As with the first envelope, this was not the first time he read the name of Mr. Blair of 11 Solemnity Street, who seemed to receive a great amount of correspondence, and the correspondence he received seemed to be largely raging.

Content with his choices, he leaned to the side and gently tugged at the knob of his desk drawer, which slid open to reveal its glorious entrails. Holding his breath with the pride and sanctity appropriate to his project, he laid the contents out onto his desk.

The trick was to keep the seal of the envelope intact, for even in a post-wax society, recipients were sensitive to broken seals. What they tended to overlook, on the other hand, was any other crease of the envelope. He picked up the letter addressed to Mr. Flaubert and reached for his precisely crafted and regularly sharpened envelope knife, which sliced the crease on the side of the envelope into a clean, straight opening.

He shook the letters out of their envelopes, gently, and conducted a brief overview of their contents. He was pleased to notice, at first sight, plenty cliché phrases to make for the rich canvas he so needed. Mr. Flaubert was ‘the only sun in the entire universe,’ and the sender, Cass, promised to ‘revolve around him like all the planets - with a particular gravitational force.’ On the other sheet of paper, there was Cassandra, dissatisfied customer Cassandra who was, with all due respect and sincere apologies, writing to inform Mr. Blair that ‘the gold atom delivered to her house was missing an electron,’ and that ‘the issue of replacing the gold atom was sure to be taken with the greatest gravity by Mr. Blair.’ Cassandra had even attached an image of the atom, but disclaimed to Mr. Blair, in the postscript, that its poor quality made the deficiency difficult to make out.

As he exchanged his abnormally thin envelope knife for an

Karolina Fílová

ordinary pair of scissors, a shadow spread across his features. His was a delicate craft, requiring not only the highest levels of care and attention to detail, but also immaculate linguistic and logical capacities. From this point on, his project required all the focus he could conjure up. He was, after all, a cartographer of sorts - a cartographer who draws up all the roads and paths and borders, and even all the rivers and contour lines and oceans, long before appear in the actual terrain.

There was a reason they had chosen him for the subterranean room, he nodded to himself as he performed his surgical cuts on the two letters. What might have appeared to be a chaotic swarm of cut-out words and phrases on his desk was in fact nothing of the sort; the words were firmly rooted in the contexts of their new stories, if, for the time being, only in his mind. Then, having found the correct shade of white in his sample pallet, he picked out two blank sheets of paper and commenced what was arguably the most critical stage of the process: the assemblage. The key was to preserve as much of the senders as possible, as much of their structure and imagery and idiolect, while also redirecting their story elsewhere. He shuffled the cut-outs around until they traced the shapes he had prepared in his head, and then glued them to the paper, traceless.

At the final stage, he crossed the room towards the printer and copy machine once again and let the high-tech machine do its high-tech magic, eliminating any last traces of craftsmanship from the newly replicated letters. He took a final, self-satisfied look at his masterpieces and folded them in a manner careful enough to seem important, but not quite perfectly aligned, and then he slid them back into the two envelopes.

Mr. Blair was now due to receive a quite different kind of letter than anticipated by the envelope: Cassandra, with all due respect and sincere Affection, was writing to inform him that he was, to

35 Love Letters to the Manager

her, ‘the only gold atom in the entire universe’ and that she was ‘missing him like a displaced atom,’ and that she would ‘revolve around him like an electron’ until he was ‘delivered to her house.’

And as for Mr. Flaubert - poor Mr. Flaubert would be issued the disgraceful task of ‘replacing the sun’ to redeem himself after the ‘great gravity’ of misconduct he exhibited, and was to be informed that it had been ‘a deficiency to make out’ with him.

Georgina Buckle

Oceanic Feeling

SAUL BARRETT

It’s been raining all day.

We sit indoors, sleepy in a car, sleepy.

We watch a film about a huge prehistoric shark.

Having planned to have a bath tonight, we do not.

No one will ever want a bath again.

We lie here, dry, unwashed rain battering window-pane.

dawn, possibly midnight Muttering under the spluttering shower that fails to get warm I sound angry My body shakes Recognising the greyness outside It is gone lunchtime

37

Eggs We fucked, we didn’t get up, we sweated, panting in the hallway, and then I made some terrific eggs.

Tom Savage

My feet get cold as the sun slides by.

TABITHA AWRE It’s 4.27am It’s 4.27am and she’s listening to the radiators.

The groaning of water shaking her inside She sighs the creaks and squeaks of old pipes A waterfall of white noise to blanket her emotion Only perceptible when the faucet is turned off And a stillness pervades and sits inside her The echoing high ceilings within Reaching to her oesophagus Air minutely vibrating in the space Darkness dead in the air No shimmering shadows extending spindly claws Wafting in her space, invading her pores Just sat unmoving, weighing on the cracks In her weary brick spine Stacks of cement crumbling in between Her tatty wallpapered skin Her floorboard feet shift under the carpets Bleeding out a whole repertoire of groans and grumbles Wriggling under different weights And now she feels a fresh rain begin to splatter The slates of her eyes Trickling and swimming on the insoluble surface Dripping them into darker grey The shadowed cabaret of detail and design Winds its way down her shoulders Her embroidered hair twisting and turning Into ivy and flowers skating thinly Over a worn chair cover, A dilapidated cushion She is threaded everywhere

39 The radiators quieten down And with a frown she bites the metal Of a kitchen sink Sunk between her ceramic teeth Chews a babybel wax tongue Stares into her ceilings And waits for morning to come

Elif ’s image?

Elif Karanis

41

YIORGOS KARIDIS The Mind and its Illusions: how the pandemic transformed my approach to thinking “the illusion…exists as a potentiality or model in the mind, as a fiction which does not yet exist but may be brought into existence or realised by a creative mind.”

Northrop Frye

The human brain is an incomprehensibly complex thing. It’s an

intricate web of hidden electrical pathways and chemical reactions, regulating every aspect of our bodily function and interpreting all our senses. It’s the apex of a layered network of organs, tissue, bones, and blood, controlling the motions of life with invisible, atomised signals. Scientists have labelled it the crown jewel of the human body; the defining masterpiece of evolution; nature’s own Mona Lisa. The brain is so elaborate that neuroscientific research only started to uncover its timeless mysteries in the 1960s.

For many, the brain is one thing, and the mind is another. In social environs, our neural highways appear to perform functions quite unfamiliar to the expertise of neurosurgeons and research scientists. In positioning ourselves amongst the people, objects, and events which permeate our lives, the mind is king. It’s the gatekeeper of all knowledge; the architect of communication; and most importantly, the absolute monarch of our emotions and perceptions. It has an abstract capacity to imagine and superimpose thoughts onto each other; to simultaneously illude and convince oneself of various truths and fallacies; and to conglomerate a disconnected series of events into a singular object of emotional response. The mind interprets and makes intelligible the multiplicities of world; the device which creates order from the chaos of society. But sometimes its creative ability is so potent, so illusory, that the mind ends up counterposing our happiness.

Yiorgos Karidis

Mental health, it’s fair to say, has had a relatively awful time during the pandemic. Like it or not, humans are irrevocably social creatures, not naturally predisposed to follow draconian regulations which impose, albeit out of necessity, a form of selfimprisonment under which a dull staticity replaces vibrant, energising social contact with occasionally draining zoom calls and an unhealthy diet. We have learnt to live in a society which places paramount value on interaction with our own kind.

Psychological studies demonstrated the importance of the social environment decades before 2020, showing that long periods of isolation interferes with a healthy sleep cycle, damages mental well-being, and can cause immune and cardiovascular disfunction. For many of us, these are serious concerns which have come to the fore at least infrequently over the last twelve months.

After six months of restrictions and a two-week isolation in September, I was excited to go back to university. Admittedly, it started off well; I rekindled with seemingly long-lost friends and relished the relative freedom of living with housemates. However, predictably, disaster handed us two coronavirus diagnoses within the first ten days, bringing about our first two-week household isolation. Two days after the first isolation period: a second national lockdown. Two days after that: another positive test and a second two-week isolation. The following morning: four more coronavirus diagnoses, taking the termly household infection rate to six out of seven. The centripetal force of this downward spiral collapsed somewhat heavily on my mental health, as it did for all of our housemates. In the process, the interpretative, synthesising potence of the mind became self-destructive as the deluge of unfortunate events culminated in the mental illusion of a singular, negative “situation”, to which I responded with sadness and anxiety.

In near solitary confinement, it’s very easy to spend a lot of time thinking about very little. The overwhelming vividity of the

43 The Mind and its Illusions

“situation” can be so consuming that it becomes the object of every thought, only serving to further entrench those sensations antonymic to happiness. It’s also a very difficult mental trap to escape. The physical reality of having your movements confined within a limited quantity of square feet strikingly resembles the surreal feelings of incarceration, neglect, and idleness. Ephemeral feelings of sadness don’t have artificial treatments and medicinal remedies like most illnesses. Instead, they often come with the corollary of desiring solitude; only allowing the “situation” more time to embed itself in the psyche, pushing further afield the return of happiness. The only solution to the “situation” – a self-imposed synthesis of the creative mind – is found exactly in its point of origin: the mind itself.

After a detailed, illuminating conversation with a close friend, I started to think more closely about how our mind actually works; in particular, how it projects events and their associated emotions onto a single mental plane, resulting in an all-consuming illusion of the psyche. By treating sadness as a reciprocal emotional reaction to my mind’s formulation of separate events, I started to understand that sadness can only exist in the mind. No event, however significant, automatically decrees sadness on those who experience it. The mind has to “make” things sad with other conceptual resources such as memory, opinions, and personality.

Gradually, I started to use a “concept of the mind” to counteract its unhelpful projections.

The concept of the mind, or consciousness, has a long history, rooted in ancient Greek ontology and metaphysics. In the Phaedo, composed between the 5th and 4th centuries B.C., Plato first distinguished the invisible, immortal, and incorporeal soul from the material, perceptible, and existent body, creating the possibility of a metaphysical mind. Nearly a millennium later in Roman Africa, St Augustine of Hippo attributed memories, desires, and understanding to the faculties of an abstract mind; an entity he

Yiorgos Karidis

used as irrefutable proof of the biblical passage “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Genesis 1:26). Later still, in the early 17th century, René Descartes proposed a binary, or ‘dualist’, distinction between the mind and body, the composite of which was the human-being.

The mind and its powers have always received special treatment in philosophy; mainly because thinkers have conceptualised the mind as existing outside of physical reality. This concept has had various uses; to explain the fundamentals of human nature; to justify religious views; and even to create gods. In 1792, citizens of Paris during the French revolution subscribed to a “Goddess of Reason”; born out of the enlightenment philosophy of the likes of Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Rosseau, of which the human mind was a staple theme. The concept of the mind has existed for millennia, yet it remains a somewhat loose, intangible, and evasive idea; even more so in the age of scientific understanding where the study of the brain has grown apace.

Metaphysical ideas – those which have no basis in physical reality such as the “relationship” between mind and brain – are often more easily understood through analogy. Let us pretend that we’re sitting in front of the television watching a show. On the screen, we see a melange of colour, shape, and sound, perpetually transforming to create a series of connected images. Yet, concealed from our vested attention, the superimposed image is merely thousands of microscopic pixels flickering on and off to the rhythm of a digital code. Practically speaking, our source of entertainment is a cluster of tiny lightbulbs.

When watching the television, we don’t think about how the show works. Rather, we just enjoy it for what it is; as it appears in front of our eyes. The mind, or consciousness, is much like the show; the end product; the superimposition of complex mechanics underneath. The brain is more like the flickering lightbulbs of

45 The Mind and its Illusions

the television; a commerce of neurological impulses, travelling at lightspeed along wires, cells, and synapses. In other words, the mind is simply the collectivity of the brain’s functions of which we are actively aware. In the conscious act of thinking, we understand not only the content of the thought, but inadvertently recognise our ability to think in general. The mind therefore implicitly recognises the brain, but by a powerful illusion takes on a separate status because the workings of the brain which produce a thought are obscured from the content of the thought itself. In sum, I think Descartes was wrong; mind and brain are one and the same thing, only the first is the uncredited production of the second.

I think all this provides a satisfying proof that my mental reaction to a series of events during the termtime pandemic “disaster” was essentially an illusion; merely the effect of electrical and chemical interactions which had produced so convincing and potent a fallacy in my mind. There was no “situation” in physical reality; only the one I had made in my mind. And by gradually appreciating that anything one “makes” in their mind can just as easily be unmade, the “situation” slowly dissipated into its constituent parts; a collection of disconnected, insignificant events over which I had no influence.

I found powerlessness a curiously satisfying state of being; for it can be made into a positive philosophy for living. If most of our experiences in life, especially those which produce negative feelings, are outside our control, why don’t we just focus on the things we can control? The mind is the absolute monarch of emotion, and we have total autonomy over its proceeds. If we are headstrong enough, brave enough, we can channel many thoughts towards positivity; or at least, appreciate the relative insignificance of many of those things which make us unhappy, barring of course a few exceptions. Happiness is, after all, a chemical drug: dopamine. If the effects are so good, why not make its production

Yiorgos Karidis

the aim of our existence?

My experience wasn’t pleasant, but thousands, in fact, millions of people have had far worse in this difficult time. If I were so daring as to offer advice, I would implore people to think more about thinking. Don’t stop short at considering the content of a thought; go a step further and think about how and why the thought has been formulated. If it generates any negative emotion, appreciate that you have the power to nullify it; for your autonomy of mind is the only control you actually possess. I found these mental ex- ercises exceptionally satisfying, but they can only be fully under- stood by each individual.

Today, I am not only happy, but I also understand far more about myself.

I am able to better control and supersede the difficult moments; I feel far more influential over my emotions; and life is more peaceful and easy as a result. Never underestimate the power of the mind. Tame it, and make it work for you. As English poet John Milton once said: “The mind is its own place, and in itself, can make a heaven of Hell, a hell of Heaven.”

47

Samantha Thompson

BILL LEA

Our Correspondant As our correspondent stalked down the country road, an

apocalyptic, resonating supernova that they report, the cry was not merely a peace-disturber, but actually was so many decibels as to isolate from the surroundings individuals coming and going, instantaneously deafening all them or else giving them, out of sympathy, a different time so that none actually heard the sonic rupture, save of course, themself the good doctor and the four men dotted around the meadow like particles of a gaseous temperament, one whom the Earth-bending sneeze had emanated from, which was regarded to be Lord Steven Sublimate, incognito. The correspondent tells us that these three other particles, contained within the sphere of having heard the shout, no doubt, were part of the same brigade; certainly, of a similar age and even from afar, seemed in some profound sense to know his three particle compatriots: Baron Charles Condensation in his robe was recognised imminently, as was The Right Honourable Martin Vaporise Water, who had reached the garden gate Lord and Baron were sideby-side striding towards, flung it open, and made for something on the street. Furthest was His Eminence David Freezethawweathering, who was suspected to be the indented recipient of the OI that came from downstream, and though he chuckled to himself, he paid it no heed as he disposed of the contents of his curious box, in a container which was a noticeable distance from the focus point the gate, while Right Honourable had located a closer vessel: perhaps this was the direction of the ! that alerted the listener Dr. in the first place – His Imminent Eminence was starting confidently down the wrong road.

The report goes on to say that the quartet – S. Sugar, D. Everything, M. Spice, C. Nice – exited the burning fields in favour of civilisation and a beverage, they could be heard discussing the saltridden brine of the sea, the tide’s ebb and flow, what could possibly determine? The thirst of a June day was borne equally by all, from an outside impression, and doctor noted that the civilisation eventually discovered had been pre-set up for economic purchase, and so of course the debate shifts to finances and debts, until the market enters view, a decision must be made, the guards at the market door. And all venture through at different

49 Our Correspondant

periods, except Mr Martin of Rhodes who waits statue-like on the cusp (the assumption was that the proper clothing under the eyes was outside of the possession) with a nod to Sr David of Babylon an iou was drafted up and a beverage agreed upon, once Babylon had entered and exited the square several times in conformation. Correspondent was not able to see inside the tightly-guarded complex (or was that its appearance?) and so halted with Rhodes, as Herr Charles of Giza and Monsieur Steven at Halicarnassus emerged together with who knows what rich refreshing gifts, and later old Davy Jones with a vial for his compatriot Marty Luther, the deal was struck, the steel drachmas exchanged, the searching party reverting back on itself towards sunlight meadows – our report reports the group ambling past the gate into the lush greenery, Charles Chaplain side by side with Steve Eve, playing an internal game of chess and checkers. Four of a kind, two and two, dcsm, Air Fire Ice Earth, six twenty-eight four hundred and ninety-six eight thousand one hundred and twenty-eight.

The Mister Doctor came across the Rye, grass withering like in those European capitals, deep in the arable, the sound of the chariots already easily forgotten, and their eyes rose fractionally to behold C. Nice, M. Strasbourg, so on, so forth, contemplating of a place to rest oneself a while, whether sheltered or a plain, through the undergrowth, dismay at the destruction of monuments surrounding, if not to appreciate artistically, to pause. Alas, the indistinct stonewalled forms and fallen trees were few small and far between: or perhaps, writes our reflector, this could be celebrated – to give a fallen-over tree the same status as an agonised-over remnant of art, to view a sculpture practically? No greater shame. And so, perhaps in avoidance, Dodecahedron Steven recounts a tucked-away park bench that is nothing more than a park bench, and though other routes and campfires are suggested, he remains in the position of Chief Navigator, as they pass under the upright trees into the Renaissance Garden, and Able Seaman Dave tenses as his journey of falsification begins, but there are no greater intellects to recount his theory to than these, and Dr. the informed us that, though an irrational picture, they were reminded exactly of a marimba containing a rising tonal scale as open field gave way.

Bill Lea

The omniscient narrator made their way through arches, mazes, glass palaces, cobblestone paths, here, in the usual way, nature truly shown their place in it all, when in fact, the eye was drawn more upwards than sideways. For our benefit, they tailed as Charlie Octahedron wondered at Able Seaman Martin’s wonder (for Martin hails from further afield, they call him Mart of the Overcoat and of the Long Walk), time could afford to be taken, and the ice that crunched underfoot, stained glass sky, the harpsichord swam into Icosahedrondavid, cutting the air. A vision of leaping from standalone towers, clad in leather wings, hellbent on the miraculous, and the bells of the steeple in frozen clamour, innovation and tradition (though what distinct footprint does the latter leave?) Of those who only existed in their own oil paintings from day one, and of a blurring of origin countries by old eu. Stevenson’s bench was an alcove, old wood, shrouded, encased in Italian jungle leaves.

Plastic bags; broken glass; takeaway sacrilege, demonstrated to our keen-eyed observer that this age cannot unleave its mark, short of uniting together all six billion lives. To their credit, they stooped to clean, not all broken glass could be purged, but moves were made and the past began to surface again under the present, the sheet of paper’s important, dire role approacheth. It was decided that Cathedral City Cheddar Charles, Soft Sculptable Steve, Messi Mart should sit equidistant, with the focal point on the makeshift stage whence consul count david dave of the Hooverbag and Upstairs Attic stands tall, and, following the preamble, unfolds parchment, quoth, begins the speech: “in Victorian England, they used the scientific method to create colder conditions: ten thousand men and women stood on the bank of the Thames and lightly blew on the water, reducing the river to freezing in just a few days. Thi” But they have not the rights to the full manuscript, so the rest can be perused with a 5.99 30day trial (however, the first two people to enter the code ‘NEUTRON’ can pay 5.98) Intrepid information-gatherer listened with growing Victorian alarm at the masked forgery on excitable display – how, in a post-truth world, can we forego the nothing but the? Forego the centuries before and before that, we have to progress and remember our progress. The newest

51 Our Correspondant

things on earth are lies. And reserved applause bookends the final word, clarifications felt and interest manifested – leading the charge, The Right Honourable (who was that again?) Hexahedron and Sirloin Sublimate, but taking the measured approach, success is with Charliefarlie who, in the game of question-asking, sets the s rank bar. Accusations of talent are made, left, right, centre (how dare you sir? I’m as talentless as the day I was born!) no avail, none at all. Midday has passed, planet analogy’s temperature soars. They heard the cries of laughter as nicknames were invented and redistributed, look at us all, seated in front of the Swindon School of Economics, Tiverton Taunton Barnstaple Bristol, Sashimi Farmer King Quartermaster, sloth sloth sloth sloth.

Our Special narrator agent was able to deduce the following: all had been birthed into existence a short while before the encounter of the ! by an employee at the local seafood factory into which all had stumbled at various speeds and hastes. Regarding a quartet, the Christening had occurred at the purchase of lovely fishy goods no later than twelve oh two, the first addressed as a simple Dave and the rest following on from there. In a set of four, Dave Spade makes himself known the quickest: the generic public house gent, or distinguished member of the college, it’s all in the pronunciation. All eating fish under the willow tree, caught and curated by others, fed for when. All amiably staggering homeward bound, under the burning sun, the day was done. When the itinerary becomes respelled to impossibility, the off-the-cuff spools of dialogue and stranger barebone games are revealed to be a gentle, floating path B, but some facts such as this, should only be addressed when they apply – What a nice day this is! Anyway, this was first discovered in April. April is. You utter fool! Don’t mention April! They all know how to finish your thought if you mention bloody April!

Someone’s begging for bits

The City THALIA WITHERFORD My god I miss the city That vast emptiness of people This edge life so gritty This high-rise utopia Despair and decay Where everyones clawing Just to get through the day

And it speaks to me backwards In its carcigen air There’s no welcome No silence But I know that it’s there And the upside to this

My god man I miss it That cut on the breeze The sharpness of air In your lungs Through your teeth My god man I miss it It seems to speak back Not lonely reassurance But the certainty that Somewhere else in this city Someone else going wrong Be it stabbed, drunk or bleeding Pain is always around And it’s fucked up to say it But it reassures how Somewhere else in this city Someone’s always knocked down It’s the grooves in serrated Tween each high-rise and ridge Someone else breaths abated

Is there’s life to be had It’s electric It’s visceral Cos the knifes in your hand Where your gritting your teeth And your riding it out Where the whine in your head You can ride or be dead Where the blood in your stream Flows uphill

53 Flows down south Where the taste on the tip of your tongue is all copper Where the thrill of the ride is that we survive we suffer They’re made of different stuff To bear this mad Arena

Scarlett Ryan All of these grey faces The wailing when i sleep I hear them and I taste them On the tongue and in the teeth My god I miss the city I cannot tell you how How much I miss the feeling Of reflection in the dark

Between the sheets of rain Cast by the lamplit streets We are all the same Our grief is in the heat Its steaming off the pavement That gentle stench of rain The bull that is careering Down each downtrodden path Turns its nostrils flaring Eyes red lit in the dark And now its heading for me It’s pace is in the sentence The quickening The darkness A guarantee Repentance I’m screaming out to this time I’m howling in my madness My laughter stains my eye lids with the smear of tears that I’ve shed And I know that in the limelight I will always fear what I’ve said Here they are my undead their storming out towards me And then the car lights cut through Laughing I’m wide awake The city too You’ll never be alone In pain In a city that Was built for it

Interview: Adele Thomas

Georgina Buckle talks to Adele Thomas about the relationship between art and the world, performing during the pandemic, and the route she took into the arts.

What immediately strikes me about Adele Thomas is her ani-

Adele Thomas, centre, rehearsing before lockdown.

mated, warm energy and her brilliant humour. Adele kick-starts our chat by earnestly asking me a flurry of questions and after a mere few minutes, we are both laughing. Since last year, when Zoom became a feature in our lives, there have been very few calls which have left me as elevated as this one with Adele. I found it impossible not to smile for most of our interview.

It’s unsurprising, given the nature of her art, that Adele Thomas, Welshborn theatre and opera director, is a people-person. Thomas grew up in Port Talbot, and began her directing career at Cambridge, while she read English at Fitzwilliam College. Since then, Adele has built up an impressive portfolio within the performing arts where notable credits include directing for the likes of Shakespeare’s Globe, Northern Ireland Opera, Royal Opera House and National Theatre Wales.

55 It was at Cambridge that Thomas discovered opera for the first time and the topic of studying at Cambridge is where I had planned for our interview to start. I begin to ask my question but Adele beats me to it – she caringly wants to know how us students are all getting on in lockdown.

Adele Thomas: How are you all faring in this time?

Georgina Buckle: Things have been okay, I think we are all just trying to get by… Thank you for asking.

AT: I think students have been so gracious and extraordinary in this period of time, in a way that boomers absolutely haven’t. Anytime I hear someone over the age of seventy saying they won’t wear a mask I just want to say: how dare you?! These kids are sacrificing shagging, and partying, and in-person education, and still making it work – how dare you! When the pandemic started I went ‘oh I can’t do anything online, I’m useless!’ But students just said ‘nope, I am making it work’. I am just in awe of you all, I really am.

GB: That’s very kind of you to say. Thinking back to your time as a Fitzwilliam student, what was your biggest takeaway?

AT: It feels so long ago now! The thing that day-to-day has been extremely useful is the stamina that it takes to get through studying at Cambridge. The level of intense academic social interaction, the partying, then having to get up in the morning and still deliver, has been weirdly helpful because you come out into the real world and realise that you must balance an awful lot in your life when you’re trying to forge a career. You know, I still have to pull all-nighters! I try not to, but sometimes I have to. Also the way that curiosity and research are embedded into your day-to-day life – that is still very much the case for me now. I revel in research. It really fuels everything that I make and that was definitely nurtured at Cambridge.

Adele’s infatuation with opera was also nurtured at Cambridge. Fitzwilliam college was the first place that she saw an opera; English professor

Dr Subha Mukherji played their class a New York MET production of Ariadne auf Naxos. Adele’s whole face lights up recalling this memory – clearly, it was love at first sight for her then.

AT: Opera had never entered my sphere of influence until that point. I was absolutely mesmerised! I will never stop thanking Fitzwilliam for putting me in contact with it.

In previous interviews, Adele is outspoken about how her working-class Port Talbot roots have affected her work in the opera and theatre industries. Despite Cambridge, she always felt like an outsider in theatre, not having grown up reading Chekhov plays, or having had an automatic love for the canon. Given this background I am curious to know more about how Adele finds navigating the arts, notorious for its culture of exclusivity and pretension. In fact, it is not the canon itself but the culture of exclusive focus on the canon which Adele fervently criticises.

AT: Lots of stuff in the canon is brilliant because it is brilliant. It’s when we believe only in the canon that it can really limit us. The art itself is brilliant, but the art itself is not the problem. The problem is the notion that the canon can’t be challenged, because of course it can. And it will now! If we come out the side of a pandemic with everything that’s happened with movements such as Black Lives Matter and we still think the canon that existed beforehand was the only canon, then the industry is completely screwed – because it’s not responding to the world. It’s as soon as art steps away from the world and takes its feet out of the gutter that it ceases to be of any relevance to anyone ever. It’s not art anymore, it’s nostalgia.

GB: How do you personally make high art respond to the world? Such as with the Verdi opera you are currently working on.

AT: I love a lot of high art. But the important thing to remember as an artist is that you have to come to the work. You can’t bring the canon to the work, you need to bring yourself to it, and then it can live.

57 For example, I am obsessed with medieval painting, I’m also really interested in surrealism and music videos, and the concepts of revenge, and heaven and hell… All of this stuff is what I’m bringing to the Verdi performance. Hopefully, these things will make it breathe and sing.

GB: Is there anything that you try to avoid doing as a director?

AT: Well, the problem is when people neglect things that are obvious: they neglect story because they think everyone knows the story, because everyone knows the canon. My dream audience is always my mother, who is really smart and brilliant but completely uneducated and has no contact with culture whatsoever. If she can’t understand what I’ve made, then I’ve failed – and then art has failed. When you feel comfortable, that’s when you can slip up and forget that your job is to midwife this work to as wide a group as possible.

GB: Many people do find opera to be inaccessible. There is a pervasive, preconceived idea about it which can put-off new watchers. What are your thoughts on this?

AT: Opera is no longer the terrain of people just standing still and delivering. Opera singers are really curious and exploratory. They throw themselves into gymnastics, and real detailed acting, all whilst being superhuman singers – so, I think they are amazing. [When I worked on theatre] I felt like I was constantly trying to force actors to be rock stars, but opera singers already are rock stars. They just bring this fantastic performance energy.

GB: What is it like collaborating with all the different directors on various elements of an opera piece? I would have thought that directors have more creative freedom when working in ‘straight’ theatre, as so much in opera is predetermined by the composer, such as the pacing and a degree of characterisation.

AT: It’s a misconception that making theatre is freer than making opera.

In fact, my move into opera was cemented by the fact that I was finding

theatre very fixed. It feels like there’s a set rhythm to theatre, it’s always structured the same, and there are too many parameters. I also noticed that the only actors I ever liked working with were also secretly brilliant musicians, because music really is the thing that drives me and gets me out of bed in the morning. It’s the thing that I really love. I found that as a theatre director a lot of my job was about shaping pace and dynamic.

But, in opera that’s already done! So, I could focus on things I am really interested in like big visual metaphors.

GB: Is it difficult having to cede your artistic direction to musical practicalities?

AT: With an opera, you can’t ignore the fact that it is all music. That’s the point of it. If you’re banging your head against the music, you need to start again. If your concept doesn’t work for the music, it doesn’t work for the opera. The joy for me is that it’s actually more than a play: in an opera you have the libretto, you have the character, you have the world created, but you also have the interplay and subtext in the music. When all that stuff is interesting and bouncing off each other it’s divine… It’s so divine.

GB: Do you think that if this process of creating opera was demystified to younger people, interest in opera would increase?

AT: Absolutely. ‘Demystify’ is a brilliant word. The best work that I have seen on stage has been opera, but also the worst stuff I have seen on stage has been opera. It has the capacity to be incredibly boring. If you approach it going ‘oh this is Wagner so we have to be very reverent’, of course it’s going to be boring! But when you look at the work of Barry Kosky or Richard Jones, they always get to the root of it. There is lots of brilliant work out there, it’s just about alerting people to it. Theatre culture doesn’t respect design, the visual, and music as much as opera, so you’re right. Because once you realise that someone is singing above an orchestra, that’s amazing. And seeing opera in person – that’s the key.

59 The first opera that Adele ever directed was Mozart’s Così fan tutte for the National Ireland Opera in 2017. Put simply, the plot is about two boys who trick two girls into falling in love with the wrong boy. Like many other operas, it is sometimes criticised for perpetuating problematic stereotypes.

“The art itself is brilliant, but the art itself is not the problem. The problem is the notion that the canon can’t be challenged, because of course it can. And it will now!”

GB: As a director you seem intent on making a production alive to its current context, whilst still holding true to its original elements. What is your approach to treating the old-fashioned values which appear in many operas of the ‘standard repertory’, such as Così?

AT: Exactly! You have to recognise the piece for what it is. The only thing I knew about Così was that it’s rampantly sexist. Supposedly, the female characters ‘have no individual character’ and ‘there’s nothing that can be done with them’. I looked at the piece and thought ‘it’s blatantly not true!’.

There’s lots of details and differences about them. In fact, Dorabella (who everyone says is no character) ends up singing an aria saying ‘just have sex! Go for it!’ How can we ignore all of this? People stop looking at the actual piece and we must address that. I can’t believe that Mozart would write such unbelievable arias for women, his sopranos, if he was sexist. That makes me think that in this case, the art itself is not to blame.

There are always ways you can excavate the essential character and refuse them to become generic versions of themselves. It always helps when the people who are making it have fresh, creative blood, people who love the medium and have something genuine to say about the world.

GB: Much like yourself.

AT: Hopefully… I don’t know what I’ve got to say about the world, I’ve been locked in my house for nine months!

Samantha Thompson

This comment makes us both chuckle, but it also steers the conversation toward the very serious effects the pandemic has had on theatre. The Society of London Theatre & UK Theatre estimated losses for the sector at £630 million by mid-June of last year – this figure will have now increased. Since the pandemic began, Adele has fought for the survival of the industry and its workers, and is one of the founding members of Freelancers Make Theatre Work: a platform for self-employed and freelance workers from all areas of the performance industry to connect with each-other.

It has encouraged inclusive conversation and much needed support for fellow freelancers. Adele has also been vocal about the failures of the government to support the arts, tweeting ‘a ten point plan for the future of the arts’ which calls for grassroots campaigning, private philanthropy for artists and a 24-hour total culture blackout. I wouldn’t hesitate to label Adele as an arts activist.

AT: This period has depleted theatre financially and also depleted its confidence. It’s a real sadness. It could use this opportunity right now to re-birth itself, but whether it has the confidence to use this moment to

61 make change… I’m not sure.

GB: What key solutions do you propose?

AT: The industry inevitably must make a massive sacrifice to better support the freelance community. No one was talking about freelancers [during the first lockdown] but 70% of the theatre industry are freelancers! Which is extraordinary. No one, particularly not the government but bizarrely neither the industry itself, looked after these people. The balance must put the power back in the hands of the artists… There’s a lot of gatekeeperism and territorialism in the industry. Things get territorial when people are protecting a very tiny empire, it’s the sign of a lack of confidence. So many people in this industry are so generous, but the industry as a whole can be very closed-off – so anything we can do to smash those doors would be very useful and urgent.

GB: Will there be any positive change to the industry because of the pandemic?

AT: I hope so… Here’s what I think will happen. Institutions will become more conservative as a result of the pandemic. What I hope will then happen is there will be a whole new generation of people who realise that the industry will not help them, so they’ll just make work on their own accord. And that would be brilliant – that’s when real art gets made.

Places like the National Opera Theatre only exist because artists are the bottom line – they are the ones planting these extraordinary forests.

We’ve become very dependent on organisations. People are going to have to find ways to make art outside of the industry, and it will be far more exciting, far more electrifying, far more connected to the world, far more forward-looking. I am delighted that that will happen.

GB: Where do you see the arts in five years?

AT: I would just love it to be more in the hands of the artists. When that happens, audiences come automatically. Theatre just has to be wrestled away from the hands of administration!

GB: With the inevitable uncertainty and stress we are all feeling, what is it that sparks your day?

AT: Running. That’s gotten me through lockdown – it literally gets me out of bed in the morning. I have also been relentlessly busy because of Freelancers Make Theatre Work. We were working on that for fourteen or fifteen hours a day, pulling all-nighters. And also this Vivaldi piece I’m currently working on, which has been entirely designed, cast, concepted, and come together over Zoom. I have never met my designer in person, or artistic director in person, only over Zoom. It’s so strange, but kind of thrilling… So that’s been getting me out of bed – but mainly running!

“the important thing to remember as an artist is that you have to come to the work. You can’t bring the canon to the work, you need to bring yourself to it, and then it can live.”

Adele’s Irish National Opera production of Bajazet by Vivaldi is scheduled to be performed in May. But, like all plans nowadays, this is subject to changing Covid regulations. One thing for sure, it promises to be another powerful testament to Adele’s innovative and dynamic direction.

Meanwhile, the electricity of our conversation, Adele’s invigorating zeal for opera and her fierce hope for the future of the arts, will linger long in my memory after this interview.

Szilvia Daczò

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