UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL CREATIVE ARTS MAGAZINE
J ou r n e Y WINTER 2012
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“Not all those who wander are lost.” J R R Tolkien A warm welcome to our first issue of a new academic year. Before the start of term I was contacted by an ex-contributor and editor of Helicon in its baby years, and was asked if I would like to have a look at some old issues. I replied with an eager yes please and soon found a fat parcel on my doorstep. (Yes, I got that warm fuzzy feeling of discovering post that doesn’t resemble a bill or a bank statement.) I soon found myself engrossed in some of Helicon’s earliest issues, which took me on Helicon’s own little journey, that started as a black and white pamphlet of poems and blossomed into a colourful magazine, in print and online; a vibrant showcase of Bristol student’s wonderful creative conundrums. And so here is one more to add to the collection, we give you the Journey issue itself. In between nostalgic poetry and photographs of roads glinting in summers beguiling light, you’ll find our triptych feature, page 11, the story of Bristol’s journey towards independence with the introduction of the Bristol Pound, page 31, whilst this issue brings you Helicon’s first editorial photoshoot, page 23. With love and happy reading, Lydia x
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lydia greenaway
art editor
maya dudok de wit
photography editor florence downs
poetry editors anna godfrey joshua adcock
prose editors jessica mckay rosemary wagg
features editors annabel hornsby roisin briody
publicity
alice piper
treasurer sarah kew
heliconbristol.blogspot.com facebook.com/heliconmagazine helicon.magazine@gmail.com cover photograph by agatha rowland back cover by tom henderson
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Seen in Passing, Cycl discarded r ubber tubing, roofing felt, plywood, Fujifilm (september lapping many colours, wilting tesserae to sepia) sideroads; snakes alive and dead and undecided; d a m s o n t r e e s a n d d o d d e r, t a r e s a n d w h e a t ; eight fields of oilseed, each a home or temporary refuge for guinea fowl and pheasants, straining eyes to tell the buzzard’s shadow from the ruses of the sun;
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ing North cows - stoical, peripatetic, Pythagorean; imperceptible changes in the cur vature of ear th, with all the little lazy tilts you’d never guess your body made or may again;
by Peter Naumann photograph by Niall Oswald
MAYA DUDO K DE WIT
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7 Snakes on a Plane 2: Goats on a Train George Howlett george’s travel writing diary style background It all hits me the moment I step out of Delhi airport – an assault on all five senses. The oppressive heat, the smells, the frantic businessmen and beggars, the general chaos – it’s all very unsettling for an 18 year old from a sleepy Somerset town, nervous and on his way to the banks of the Ganges to study the sitar. India is full-on in every way. I take a rickshaw (a strange vehicle that looks like the lovechild of a quad bike, a robin reliant, and a tent) to the train station. After adjusting to the Hamiltonesque overtaking habits (and after eventually working out which side of the road Delhi motorists are officially supposed to drive on), I manage to relax enough to sit back and stare at the city – an equal mix of proud colonial grandeur and piles of halffinished rubble. The vivid colour and sheer energy of the place is breathtaking – every billboard shouts out for some new opportunity, and everyone here is busy. The whole fabric of the country is intent on going somewhere. Having been told/warned that sampling the railway was quite an experience in itself, I somewhat unwisely book a 13 hour train to Varanasi over the night of New Year. I eventually find my ‘bed’ – a top shelf at least a foot shorter than me (then again you get what you pay for, my ticket for the 800km trip costing about 4 pounds). Soon after settling down, I’m startled by a foot dangling down outside the window. I seem to be the only one who is surprised about this man on the roof (my bunk-mate later passing him tea and a newspaper), but soon
8 I accept that expecting the unexpected is probably the only way to get by in this place. After several calm station announcements about delays of up to 23 hours, I am pleased to find my train leaving on time. My fellow passengers seem to share my sentiments, and start an impromptu New Year party, complete with group singing, a children’s mini cricket match in the aisle, plentiful cups of chai, and a goat. The train unexpectedly stops in a lively town just before midnight. After some discussion (seemingly involving laughter, mime, heated arguments, and more group singing), my carriage comes to the conclusion that the driver has probably got off to go to a party... nobody seems to mind, and we set off again a couple of hours later. I get talking to a charismatic drug-dealer who fascinates me with tales of Hinduism, rebirth, the Ganges, and the importance of karma (I ask him if selling drugs boosts his karma, and he promptly turns into a passionate advocate of complete social libertarianism and laissez-faire economics). I’m then slapped on the back (hard) by a portly taxi driver, and manage to stop staring at his massive colonial-style handlebar moustache enough to answer his enthusiastic questions about the British monarchy, and whether Pietersen’s batting form would improve for the next test match. I’m not a huge cricket fan, but this somehow makes me feel much more at home. Then again, I already feel like this has been the trip of my life, and I’m not even off the train yet.
Penanggalan From Malaysia, Penanggalan is a cursed woman Filings shadow her shoulders as she grits iron teeth. Hands braced by her ears she tears and pulls, feels the crack of spinal cord; brittle and familiar.
She’s all a hover after a quick, choked breath. Then, the suck of lung, stomach and intestine pulled through detached body, fuses in the breach of air to her severed head. Her gut knots itself, cringes in the cold. Lungs cough and sink into open air; brown in the oxygen.
The villagers celebrate a new babe. Crumbling cinnamon is hung in doorways, windows are left open to let in good, clean air. As Penanggalan flies into evening heat the sum of her parts bunch and release, sending a hot sting coursing.
Her segments trail, coiling when she stops outside a window dosed in Jeruju. She can smell the copper in the blood, the fusion of palm oil and Carjun as it’s birthed onto wooden slats.
The babe screams. Perdu tongue laps at spilt viscera, sucking up sinew, villi and endometrium.
Milla Lupton
She is stepped on, her tongue snaps back, slapping lung.
Outsides are pricked on Mengkuang. The villagers mop up, filching her meaty placenta,
burying it next to the pineapple patch. Freshly dug dirt is heaped and waiting.
With no hands to dispose of earth is cleared with mouth; a thick layer of nuisance on her tongue.
Ruth Hartnoll
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TRIPTYCHS
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Milla Lupton
Tomos Evans
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If I Should Learn
by Maureen Lennon
‘IF I should learn, in some quite casual way, That you were gone, not to return again I should not cry aloud, I could not cry Aloud, or wring my hands in such a place I should but watch the station lights rush by W ith a more careful interest on my face, Or raise my eyes and read with greater care Where to store furs and how to treat the hair.' Edna St Vincent Millay
A train station at five in the morning. We are waiting; stopped, it’s not clear why. We have travelled through the night, the train taking us through sunset and now sunrise. An idea that can’t help but conjure evocations of romance: despite the fact that it’s a trip undertaken in a carriage of beige that smells slightly, in fact pungently, of something I am struggling not to identify as urine. We are not alone, one of the old ladies remains, as does the cheerful Czech boy. Earlier there were several ladies, each one I would say
of the same generation as the train we are travelling on; a thought not wholly reassuring. They entered in darkness but with much hustle and bustle, exchanging sandwiches and conversation. Of course we couldn’t understand them, but I made up what they were saying; this one is expounding on the latest knitting patterns I thought, this one is worrying about her husband’s supper, this one is complaining of unruly grandchildren. Of course I could be, very probably am, totally wrong. For all I know they were plan-
ning an arms deal, or drug bust, part of an shake you awake, ruffle your hair, hold the infamous gang, Gunning Granny’s of Eastern hand that is still clamped around your glassEurope. es, joke or not. I want you awake and sharing in this waiting, in our journey’s suspenEarlier you had been joking about the risk sion. It is unclear whether from tenderness of pickpockets. Of course you’ve guarded or loneliness. your valuables, wallet, phone, iPod; stashed in secret pockets or shoes. ‘But what wor- In this moment, as we wait, I imagine, or reries me’ you say, ‘is my glasses’. They are member. I remember Millay’s poem, an exnot sufficiently protected in their normal pression of heartbreak that strikes a chord place of residence; your breast pocket offers of understanding. If I should learn in some too few defences. I point out that this car- quite casual way. If you should say, just in riage is so small any thief would have to first passing, because how else? I would not cry clamber over the Czech boy and you (the aloud, I would not cry Aloud. ‘Oh’ I should old ladies were yet to make their entrance), say ‘That’s nice’, and ‘how is she?’ smiling. then practically sit on my knee before being Always smiling. While our eyes meet and able to access any of your pockets. ‘Ah’ you you know that I am screaming, gulping, said, ‘but these glasses are worth the effort, desperately grasping at what is gone, not they’re Gok Wan’, directing this with a smile to return again. That you were gone, not to to the Czech boy. I’m not sure how much his return again. ‘Fine, it was nice to see her. fragmented English had allowed him to un- We had a nice time.’ I would not cry aloud. derstand but he joined in our laughter and ‘That’s nice’. I wonder if it is worse because brandished his own glasses case, eager to he has left everyone and I see that you are join in any expression of good humour. He leaving only me. I feel that it is worse. It is even caught your eye at the entrance of the worse for me. old ladies, you nodded, whispered ‘yes, definite potential, they could easily be in need ‘That’s nice’. That’s all. Each word now said of some, best stay alert’. One by one they with greater care. I should but watch the have left, and now only one remains; the station lights rush by/ With a more careful one I felt looked as if she had been harassed interest on my face. A conversation of studby grandchildren. Perhaps she has decided ied nonchalance, an effort at enthusiasm, to forget them because she has relaxed into that expression of careful interest. ‘Where sleep; you must have felt your guard could did you go?... Oh yes it’s nice there isn’t be dropped because so have you. it.’ Nice, always nice. And as each word is weighed and placed I look at you and shout You have slept most of the way but I have ‘Why like this? Why now? Why this charade watched our progress, distance expanding of indifference?’ An act of dispassion that behind us. A melancholic easing from land- rings false for both you and me. I see your scape to landscape. Huts and washing. A reply ‘I don’t know... I didn’t know how else’. horse and cart; wild dog; man with broken Except I don’t; I say nothing, and neither do skin and brown teeth. It is as if I am read- you. I say nothing aloud, and nor do you; ing not seeing. Or perhaps I am writing what but we understand just the same. What we I am seeing, ready to recount. This journey had is gone not to return again. Yet I just say packaged and parcelled. I have an urge to that’s nice’ and so do you, ‘yes, nice’. And
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what remains internalised corrupts and cankers; but remains silent since we shelter by talking in this oh so casual way. I want to reach out and touch you. I want to banish everyone and create our own utopia in this carriage of brown stained carpets and stiff dirty curtains. I feel that until we are alone together I will be alone. I check myself, she would not do that. It takes a mental shake to remember that she does not exist, at least not here, not yet. None of this exists, it is just me and you, the Czech boy and old woman sat in a carriage, waiting. I cling to this reality, insisting that this is just fear, not prophecy or history. A fear that we have trivialised and so remains un-vocalised, unacknowledged feelings ferment. There are several dogs now, emerging from the mist, circling the platform. I fear their approach. Oh this is too stupid I think, I am being carried away by the fantasy of the situation. This is just a railway station, wild dogs or not, sunrise or not, journey or not. We are just waiting in a carriage, an insignificant stop on our journey, no cause for trepidation. If I should learn in some quite casual way. Somehow in this moment it is if I am waiting to learn. I cannot shake the feeling that this is a brief respite, a deferral even if only of confirmation of what I already know. Sometimes I still need you. That is another thing I will not say aloud. I want to inhabit this moment of dread forever. There is an announcement, in a language I don’t understand. Surely it is not announcing our departure? I fear the resumption of the train’s momentum, in this moment I have seen where it is taking us. The rest of you are waking, stretching, yawning. Exclaiming at the hour, or scenery or delay- I imagine again since I understand nothing of the old ladies grumblings or Czech
boys more cheerful mumblings. I am not ready to depart. I am not ready for you to be awake. I cling on, even though I realise this moment has gone not to return again. That you are gone not to return again. I can feel you watching me, but I refuse to address you. I refuse to address this loss. Who said ignorance is bliss? Self induced ignorance is hard work. I could not cry/ Aloud, or wring my hands in such a place. Don’t start or never stop. I read the back of the old woman’s paper, or at least I seem to. A futile pretence since we both know it’s a language I don’t speak. But still, I force my eyes to focus; concentrating on not slipping into thought. Forcing myself to notice the type print, each heading, the buttons on her coat, her reading glasses which she has produced and placed on an expectant nose - no need to fear for yours after all. I count chair stripes and head rests. I cocoon myself in each mundane detail. I would not cry/ Aloud, or wring my hands in such a place. And pretend the silence arises from companionship. Pretend I can insist on your presence for as long as I refuse to acknowledge your absence. Distance expanding between us. Slowly, as I note each detail I become less dependent on this careful interest. I sew this picture back together. It is just you and me, the old lady and the Czech boy waiting in a carriage, an insignificant stop on our journey, no cause for trepidation. We are waiting to continue our trip. You have noted the old ladies glasses with amusement and I catch your eye and smile. But perhaps it is obvious that my amusement is self-conscious, expressed with greater care. Despite my controlled demeanour you seem to sense something of my quiet desperation. The highest insistence on control cannot banish
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Issy Croker
this scenario from my imagination. The fear remains in this place of suspension. ‘What’s wrong?’ you ask as the train and time creak back to life. ‘Nothing’, I say. ‘Nothing’, in that oh so casual way. ‘Nothing’ bright smiled and broken eyed. It was nothing. And we speed past; not to return again.
Anna Godfrey
Sam Duckerin
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Agatha Rowland
Retreat From this point on, you find Only stone and stolen
Peter Naumann
Rivers, mica, and whatever
As for all the best
Times however
Behind, head bared, so
Shapes the wind can hazard Occasions, wear the same Green as the country left Given gold and silica and seven Many years you had in mind.
As to make certain
~
This is snownot tickertape,
Not the memory Flaking out or frosting over.
journey m o d e l b e c k y todd p ho t o g r a ph e r lyd ia gr eenaw ay f a s h i on b e c k y pile
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Agatha Rowland
28 I have not been on a gap year, I have not seen shacks of glittering steel and gnarled wood pieced together like jigsaw puzzles, Or children nimbly weaving through market stalls, dodging dozing donkeys and rickshaws. I have not heard men warbling prayers as they reverently face Mecca, Or women humming as they beat clothes with rocks on the glistening Ganges. I have not felt the monsoon rain pelting my skin like a smattering of tiny rocks, Nor has a subtle breeze soothed my burning flesh at the height of the day. I have not tasted a peach plucked ripe from the tree, prone with juice, ready to yield its liquor at the first delicate bite, Or the metallic tint of blood sucked from a fresh insect sting. I have not been overwhelmed by the competing aromas of a fresh spice stall, Or woken on a grassy bank by the welcoming arms of a feint magnolia air. But, so too. I have not seen the infection flooding homes, borne on the backs of rats and water, Or children deftly sifting through mounds of the rich mans waste.
I have not heard men screaming, as they launch at each other with a tangible hate, Or women’s vitriolic curses as they are moved on by police, or marveled at babies lungs deflating and inflating through their sparrow ribcages as they cry for hunger, or the inert invalids cries for ‘dollar’. All the cries. I have not felt the cloy of clothes which will never be dry, but pucker the skin in perpetual dampness, Nor has the hot blast of the motorbike’s exhaust scorched my tender flesh. I have not winced at the acridity of putrid roadside scraps, offered from an anonymous hand above that momentarily blots out the sun, Or savored the relief of cool air, after spitting fresh blood from my aching mouth, letting the blood dribble down my chin as my hands cannot move. I have not been overwhelmed by the stench of my own human waste, festering in the bucket, And I have not recoiled from the corpse beheaded on the river bank, it’s been there long enough. What India did you go to? I didn’t go anywhere, I read a book about it, but I don’t think that counts.
Jessica McKay
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Endeavor
Shall we travel south this year? to where the rivers run clear, and our blood runs less cold, this road is long, its shadows longer, and Babylon gathers stones along the way,
from terracotta roofs, to umber sands, burnt neath the autumn sun, can you hear the wind has changed? we can delay no longer, let us fill the sails, and travel south this year . . .
why do we linger? while these walls crumble and fall,
A I Whitworth
Milla Lupton
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Niall Oswald
Bris tol and the Bris tol poun d; the jour ney towa rds inde pend ence
“Our city, our money” Self-sufficiency means identity. People in Bristol feel strongly Bristolian; there is a real sense of community here. First and foremost, the Bristol Pound is made by the people for the people. Wall artists, schoolchildren and local punters took to the drawing boards to find the best design. The alternative currency owes its success to its broad support network of volunteers. The new currency isn’t just another corporate product. It is a homegrown concept. So, to break it down into simple terms, the Bristol Pound is a concept that hopes to stimulate the local economy. Only traders signed up to the scheme can accept the banknotes, which means that once you have them, you either pay a 3% fee to exchange them for sterling, or use them within the community, preventing money from leaking out of the area. You can spend the Bristol Pound in the butchers, the corner shop and the curry house down the road, but you can’t spend it in your local Tesco.
you’ll be able to exchange money for Bristol Pounds at our very own Bureau de Change on campus. Lunartique What are your personal feelings about the Bristol pound? I am happy to encourage an initiative that will support small businesses like mine.
The initiative will be welcomed by anti-Tesco activists and those who have campaigned to defend Bristol’s strong independent character from the relentless march of supermarket giants. Researchers at the New Economics Foundation (NEF), a London think tank, compared buying in a supermarket with buying from local independent traders and found that twice the money stays within the community when you buy locally.To quote the author David Boyle, “Money is like blood – local purchases recirculate it within the community. Mega chains arrive and it flows out like a wound”. Cieran Mundy, director of Bristol Pound, says he thinks the world is looking for new ways of doing business, breaking the grip of growing corporations and reining in the centralisation of the banking industry. Bristolians have shown the rest of England that people can lead the way and create their own alternative economy. But after a couple of months, can we really see the benefits? The Bristol pound’s official website says that just over 40,000 banknotes have been printed with just over 20,000 Bristol Pounds in the electronic system. Within one day of the organization going live, the number of retailers who signed up to the scheme jumped from 300 to 350. The alternative currency already has almost 3,000 followers on Twitter and 2,000 likes on Facebook. These figures might sound promising but do they really reflect the real attitudes of local traders? Will the Bristol Pound even constitute a first step in reigning in voracious multinationals? Will you be joining the local community in their fight for an independent Bristol? As students we make up a large proportion of Bristol’s population, so its down to us as well, to be resposible about where we source our food and other produce. BUSTs Food Co-op, in Phys Bar on Wednesdays, are part of the Bristol Pound scheme, and very soon
Do you think it will stimulate local commerce? It is too early to say but the more people that take it on, the more positive it will be for the local economy. Do you think the Bristol pound gives Bristol a sense of identity? It definitely adds an extra sense of community here in Bristol! Stalhelm - since 1982 What are your personal feelings about the Bristol pound? The Bristol pound is useless, the local banks don’t want it, the council don’t want it, I don’t want it, no-one wants it. I don’t want any part in it! Do you think it will stimulate local commerce? The idea was that we would pass the money between us. But if I have 20 pounds of this blumin’ currency, I wouldn’t know what to do with it. Do you think the Bristol pound gives Bristol a sense of identity? I don’t know why Bristolians need a Bristol pound to make them feel like they have an identity. Royce Rolls Cafe - since 1979 Have you dealt much with Bristol pound? We are taking about 20 to 40 Bristol pounds a day and we pay one of our biggest suppliers with them. Do you think the Bristol pound gives Bristol a sense of identity? Definitely, I think it is so nice that local artists made the currency. It adds a real sentimental value to it! What do you think of the future of the new currency? I would have expected it’s popularity to tail off already, and so I am hopeful that people will keep using it.
Written by Annabel Hornsby Photographs by Florence Downs
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Alex Denne
When England Sinks My pet goldfish is king. Flooded from his bowl he swims past morgues, watches bloated cadavers buoy near the surface; their bodies now clouds for fish. Carp commute through shopping malls. Krill fill floating dresses, wear it as camouflage, trout hang about redundant water features, puffers shuttle between empty theatre seats.
Television sets blink out an old weather warning. Gourami pause, not knowing the light, not caring its meaning, and head butt it, willing it to swim away.
Ruth Hartnoll
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Juu Ya Mawinga
(“Above the clouds” - composed near the summit of Mt Kilimanjaro) Above, a world is opened up to me: The grooves and ruthless peaks extend beneath The blunt hillside and through to shameless grey – Eclipsed by blues no paint could show. A new horizon strikes itself before The drooping cliffs, the specks of browning grass, As cloud and sky, and world and I, converge – Eclipsed by blues no paint could show. The sun still lingers, leaving life in peace, Creating straight and cutting lines across The curving spine of space – it takes its time, It waits for night to roll onto her side. I long to fall and run across these clouds And see the feelings God keeps to himself, Hidden away from human cares and fights – Eclipsed by blues no paint could show.
adam d’aubney
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What They Don’t Tell Y ou The taxi’s waiting, he’s blowing his horn – Here’s what they don’t tell you.
Somewhere in the midst of packing and lists and packing and tickets and scanning all the official information you’ve been mailed and packing and triple-checking all your documents and packing –
– at some point, you’re going to be by yourself, not just in a strange city, but in a strange goddamned country. The dawn is breaking, it’s early morn – Here’s what they don’t tell you.
It doesn’t matter when the last goodbye occurs, when the last vestige of your old life slips away to leave you stranded in your new one. All that matter is when it happens, something inside you will – crack. Break. Or maybe just flat-out disappear.
And I’m feeling so lonesome I could die… Here’s what they don’t tell you.
That you will discover, almost immediately, how much video chat sucks. That not being able to send or receive anything from home via
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next-day delivery also sucks. That falling sick will suck worst of all, because it’s pretty much the ultimate way to drive home the reminder that this is not your home. So kiss me, and smile for me –
Here’s what they don’t tell you.
At some point during what will quickly grow into your daily routine of whatever, you will start to derive comfort from this growing familiarity. You will leave shards of yourself scattered around this increasingly less new place – in your favourite spot in the library, in the familiar smile of the person who takes your coffee order every Wednesday afternoon, in the drunken joy of a perfect night out with the people starting to feel like your family. Tell me that you’ll wait for me –
Here’s what they don’t tell you.
Not in the first plane journey home, or the one after that, or even the one after that, but eventually – – you’ll have trouble working out which way home actually is. Hold me like you’ll never let me go.
Pia Dhaliwal
milla lupton
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