SAMP LE P AGES /ISS UE 3 3
I SSUE 33 NOVEMBER 2013
EDITORIAL
B
ack in 2007/2008 when we re-designed the magazine for the first time (issue 19), it felt like a coming of age. The new look and content was very successful in boosting Brittle Star’s profile and galvanising its identity. Moving forward, we’re now on issue 33 and we’ve made the leap again. We wanted to do a few things that would take us in to the next phase of the magazine’s life and here we are with a new look, new content and some new faces. We hope you enjoy the ‘new’ little magazine. From here on out, the magazine will be available twice a year. It will be thicker than before so we’ll have even more poetry and short fiction along with articles and interviews. For the first time ever we’re introducing reviews of debut full collections, and we also have two new regular columns, we’re therefore delighted to introduce our feature writers: Andrew Bailey, Paul Blake and Sarah Passingham. What we haven’t changed is our dedication to new writing and the understanding of what it’s like to be a writer, and that is at the heart of Brittle Star. We continue to encourage new writers and readers – as without a readership who are we writing for? – and to challenge them. If you’ve recently been to our website www.brittlestar.org.uk you’ll know that we’ve re-designed that too and we now have a blog which is currently 4 • BRITTLE STAR
featuring guest writers and also writing nudges designed to get you thinking (so have a look and get involved). As promised in our last issue, we’ve now launched our first poetry and short fiction competition and we’re pleased to announce that our main judges are Mimi Khalvati for poetry and David Constantine for short fiction. Have a look at the details on page 50 or on our website. Prizes will be offered separately for both genres and so we’ll have six winners – I’m looking forward to the deadline already.
Say hello to... Andrew Bailey – Poetry Column Andrew is a writer and web editor based in Sussex. His first collection, Zeal, is published by Enitharmon.
Paul Blake – Reviews Paul’s poems have been published in various magazines, and in the anthologies This Little Stretch of Life, Fragments, Shuttle Anthology and Said and done.
Sarah Passingham – Short fiction Column
Sarah has published four books of non-fiction, a libretto, and had short stories published in The London Magazine, Stand and Said and done. BRITTLE STAR • 5
IN THIS ISSUE POETRY AND SHORT FICTION 9
Brian Docherty – Aspects of Religion
10
Phillip Walsh – This much, then
11
Estill Pollock – What no longer holds
12
Emma Lee – Before and After at Gowers Walk
14
Julie Mellor – Fever
19
Helen Turnbull – Existing Forces
23
Barbara Cumbers – Travelling Grammar
24
Jean Harrison – A Glow
25
Lisa Kelly – Gilgamesh Declares War
26
Merryn Williams – Running Out of Time
27
Peter Ebsworth – Invention
28
Carole Bromley – A Few Thoughts on Friendship
29
Katie Lumsden – A Small Reunion
41
Derek Smith – The Hay Wain
42
Derek Smith – And Also
43
Maeve O’Sullivan – Antidote
44
Sue Burge – Elizabeth Cromwell Dreams of Silk
46
Robin Lindsay Wilson – Recognisance
51
Laura Seymour – The Capgras Delusion
52
Paul Stephenson – Feel Good
55
Al Walker – The Quiet Ones
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56
Rosemary Dillon – Fey
57
Peter Asher – Field Mice
67
Jen Campbell – Yellow Bird
68
Colette Power – Wildlife Corridor
70
Carol Beadle – Portrait of Thomas Cromwell
71
Krishan Coupland – Laitka
79
Natalie Whittaker – A Change
80
Jonathan Edwards – Waunfawr Park
82
Katherine Lockton – Without Light / Birthday Wishes
83
Dharmavadana – Staring at Gilles
84
Kitty Coles – Tomato Soup Cake
ARTICLES AND REVIEWS 15
Andrew Bailey – Poetry column: Clean and Bright
37
Katie Slade – A Day of Household Words and Entertainments: National Short Story Day 2013
47
Paul Blake – Review: Lucy Hamilton’s Stalker
59
Jacqueline Gabbitas – Being in Her World: Interview with Pascale Petit
73
Sarah Passingham – Short fiction column: Capsule Guilt
85
Ian Skillicorn – …Then we’ll begin…
Cover illustration: ‘Type’ by Martin Parker
BRITTLE STAR • 7
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Brian Docherty ASPECTS OF RELIGION God is not the answer, He is the question (Thomas Aquinas)
When you burn incense before an altar. When you burn the altar for the insurance. When you introduce the insurance agent to some mediaeval religious disciplines. When you dance round a priceless wooden statue in midsummer and it starts to snow. When you engage in a heated debate about whether it is best to sell the statue or burn it. When you ask the statue for advice & it gives a sensible answer heard by everyone present. When monks in your Order set up their own temple built around the statue they have made. When each statue dictates its own Scriptures. When temples compare & contrast heresies. When the statues start to talk to each other. When the monks’ robes become fancy dress. When the statues leave for another planet chanting Thanks for all your prayers. When you realise God in is the detail. When you accept God is in the Now. When you realise you are in the Now God is in the Now, God is in you . . . BRITTLE STAR • 9
Phillip Walsh THIS MUCH, THEN The heart of any individual is about the size and shape of the clenched fist. (Black’s Medical Dictionary)
Just for now let’s leave the soul (or whatever) transcendent. This much, then: desire attenuates, like the muscle in which it’s bound, in the ribcage, behind the eyes, between the ears or the legs. Or wherever it’s found. Is multi-chambered too, having to contain love’s overcrowding, nurture and sustain passions it can no longer hold in one place. And yes, you need to know trauma from fatigue, whether rupture can heal in its own blood, desire stir itself, gather again in the tip of the tongue. This much, indeed. But what if, when the time comes, the scar’s so dense, the tissue so taut the fist can’t be unclenched? What then? If not in flesh where else might the soul be held?
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Estill Pollock WHAT NO LONGER HOLDS What no longer holds Cannot be held, in God’s defiance Stones raised upwards Falling Here, all is weeping, the water tables rising Steel storeys sunk back in earth, fugitive The view to the horizon, untroubled now Cities sacked, gassed patriots Slumped in shallow holes, at the pit’s edge, angels The spades they lean on Heaven’s breadth I could not outrun the patience of graves I have borrowed your heartbeat to tell you this
BRITTLE STAR • 11
Julie Mellor FEVER you overwinter in a cabin nail your grain store
to the rafters
to outwit the rats there are no rats but the suspicion
is real enough
like footprints in snow so much bigger than your own you set aside the need to wash let your hair grease and mat ration the whisky
through every ache
nothing tastes fresh not even melted snow and the echo
of the tin mug
like the howl of the wolf just won’t stop
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Andrew Bailey POETRY COLUMN: CLEAN AND BRIGHT
I
f I told you I found myself stuck with an earworm the other day that left me humming the word ‘database’ to the tune of ‘Edelweiss,’ I’d only be telling you the most recent in a chain of database follies. The first folly is love – a love that started in high school, with a database that was supposed to, and didn’t, improve on the cardboard box of clipped and copied recipes, and one that has persisted to now, even if it doesn’t always get the terrible theme song. The database I’ve spent most time with I built years ago to keep track of poem submissions, trusting (foolishly) that this would be a beautiful powerful engine for a literary career. You can do a lot with a notebook, or index cards, or a flat spreadsheet, but I was proud of this being relational, keeping all its data in separate tables that spoke to each other. There was one table for poems, one for magazines, and a submissions table between that tracked how and when the contents of one had been sent to the editors of the other, and not only the nature of the response but when it came. That meant I could keep tabs on how speedy each journal might be. The potential responses themselves were kept in a further table, which started out as just ‘yes’ or ‘no’ – many more of the latter than the BRITTLE STAR • 15
to get poems out into the world, even without my magic envelope button, and, although my previously efficient ‘acceptances’ query was incomplete, gathering the later publication data took very little time. We had truly grown apart, and it wasn’t the database, it was me. Treating this as a relationship, that’s a foolishness too. If I were less prone to that, I’d remember that this wasn’t a romance, this was a tool I allowed to get out of hand, but it’s hard not to think in terms of whether or not I regret the time we spent together. I don’t. There were knots and problems in the building of it that were hugely satisfying to solve, and the hours I spent keeping the data neat and the presentation methods smooth were actually absorbing, for all that marks me out as one of the world’s natural filing clerks. That last turns out to be helpful in the real world, in that I get to talk about SQL in job interviews, use it day to day, and sing these ridiculous earworms. It would probably be useful still in tracking the poems, if I were strong enough to resist the temptation to spend my time writing better queries rather than better poems. I avoid it instead by shutting the database down, and hope that’s led to better poems since. It certainly feels as if my success rate per submission is up, which would suggest so; there’s a delicious freedom in not being able to check.
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Helen Turnbull EXISTING FORCES
A
t 11.26pm Billy Roberts flew. Like a meteorite, in a cosmic shower of safety glass, he hurtled into the night sky, providing a perfect textbook example of Newton’s second law of motion which Mr Youngman, his physics teacher, the day before had tried to instil in Billy’s brain. Three seconds later that same brain was spattered across the central reservation of the A3(M) between the Horndean and Bedhampton junctions. Had Billy paid attention to Mr Youngman, instead of defacing his Key Stage 4 Physics handbook with illustrations inspired by YouPorn, it may have occurred to him at 11.25pm that a BMW M5 weighing 1,826 kilograms and travelling at an accelerating speed of 43.675808 meters per second would, on hitting a barrier, have a force of 79,752 Newtons. Thereby killing both him and his friend Tidy Williams outright. At 11.21pm Billy’s Dad, Colin, stood in front of the microwave; as it pinged both he and baby Kyle were momentarily pitched into darkness. Colin opened the door, removed the warm milk and by the yellow glow of the oven bulb, gently shook the bottle in time with the pogo stick motion of his knees. Baby Kyle twisted his head, his cries scraping the air, and pushed a balled fist BRITTLE STAR • 19
The Barbican Library is the City of London’s flagship lending Library with books, spoken word recordings, e-books, DVDs, music CDs and scores available for loan. Opening hours Monday, Wednesday 09.30am – 17.30pm Tuesday, Thursday 09.30am – 19.30pm Friday 09.30am – 14.00pm Saturday 09.30am – 16.00pm www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/barbicanlibrary There are particular strengths in music (including expert staff, listening facilities and practice pianos), finance, arts and children’s services. Public PCs offer Internet access, word processing etc. along with scanning, copying and printing facilities . The Library has an active events programme which includes literature and music events, monthly art exhibitions, children’s activities and reader development promotions. The Library is fully accessible by wheelchair and has a variety of access facilities including hearing induction loops, a reading magnifier machine and enhanced computer screen viewing and listening facilities. Membership is available to all, free of charge. Contact the library Barbican Library, Silk Street, London, EC2Y 8DS Enquiries General Library: 020 7638 0569 Music Library: 020 7638 0672 Children’s Library: 020 7628 9447 24hr renewals line: 020 7638 0568 Email: barbicanlib@cityoflondon.gov.uk
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Katie Slade A DAY OF HOUSEHOLD WORDS AND ENTERTAINMENTS National Short Story Day 2013
T
he christening of a particular date as being ‘National [insert name here] Day’ is always a bit of a cheesy, cringe-worthy affair. After all, you don’t need a licence to declare a day National, and just recently, what might have been fun in the beginning is now getting quite tiresome – I mean, come on, National Hug Your Boss Day? Or, even more ridiculous, National Vanilla Ice Cream Day? Not that ice cream isn’t awesome but there’s really no need for the entire British population to give a platform to a frozen dessert. Or hug their boss. That said, sometimes there is precedence for these events, and in December 2010 we decided to start up a little project of our own which we called National Short Story Day. It was held on the 21st of the month to coincide with the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. So if the ‘National this’ and ‘National that’ business is all a bit redundant, why did we decide to do it? Well to start with, Comma is the most prolific hard copy publisher of short fiction in the UK, and aside from the BRITTLE STAR • 37
Robin Lindsay Wilson RECOGNISANCE a blue boulder exposed itself like the backside of a rhinoceros because it had a will of its own the sky hissed and turned dark when no friends came round I blamed the bad luck distance – I blamed the blown down trellis and the missing letters in my address Alison rolled up my sleeve – my shining arm lay on the table like the sleeping belly of a snake she ran a finger in the wrong direction along the yellow sheen of blemishes I twisted my arm around her neck the rhinoceros the boulders the unlucky sky returned the cliff was upside down but it was the only way out
46 • BRITTLE STAR
Paul Blake REVIEW: LUCY HAMILTON, STALKER
O
ne of the shortest, but not the least powerful, poems in Lucy Hamilton’s collection Stalker, titled ‘The Compulsion’, begins: ‘To emerge from my hideout and stagger to the mirror. To face the stranger in my face.’ This seems to encapsulate the driving force of this collection, reading which is rather like walking through one of those fairground houses of mirrors. Throughout the book, the narrator’s self is interrogated and investigated by being placed in front of the distorting mirror of the Other – the twin, the dream self, the lover, the fictional alter-ego, the foreigner, the stranger. It is not an entirely comfortable ride – loss, death, sexual betrayal and violence are a frequent presence in the poems – but it is an illuminating one, in the company of a literate, intelligent and compassionate traveller. The book is a collection of (mostly short) prose poems divided into seven sections: Ghosts and Clochards, Storms and Stations, Apparitions and Intimations, Nightmares and Daymares, Rooms and Roads, Death and Magic, and Stalker. Although fixed narrative arcs are contrary to the BRITTLE STAR • 47
Carol Beadle PORTRAIT OF THOMAS CROMWELL He’d like to say, Holbein get on with it. He’s never been handsome, and doesn’t care, a pudding of a man hunched in his furs who taps his fingers, till he recollects the artist – their eyes meet. Well, this portrait, expected of a man of his stature, is blessedly small, like the miniature of Anne of Cleves the painter will start next. He’d like to say, Hans, make her picture sweet though there’s no need. He shivers – after all the room is north-facing, then twists the ring his late wife gave him. But his mouth is set, the heavy-lidded gaze, unreadable. Not much time left, now the light is going.
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Krishan Coupland LAITKA
L
aitka must be bathed every month with a sponge and warm water. Soft soap if she needs it. She gets tacky with all the fluids that dirty her, and her clothes may stick. If they stick the patterns from the fabric will write themselves on her skin. I have never let this happen. I peel everything away: the loose pyjamas and nightgown, the intimate cotton fretwork of her underwear. One must do this gently because her skin can peel away too, if the clothes have been too long unremoved. This is why she must be turned every day to lie first on her front and then on her back. Perhaps she finds it tiresome to lie on her front, but she does not protest. Laitka bends in beautiful ways. When I push her legs apart she looks at me, Oh, with her mouth like that: Oh. Laitka is heavy and soft. Too hot water can damage her skin and so I pour out half hot and half cold, and tear a fresh sponge from the pack. She has been bathed many times and the indignity of it no longer troubles her. She understands that it is necessary. Before beginning I spread out plastic sheets so as not to damp the bed. I wash the neck and shoulders, the body, beneath the breasts. I turn her on her side to clean her back. Then the arms from the hands up to the shoulders. After washing I pat each part BRITTLE STAR • 71
of her dry with a towel warm from the radiator. She likes that, I’m sure. Her face and her genitals require the most attention; I always leave them until last. I brush her hair and fix it back with a band before beginning. First, I remove the face, then wipe it down inside and out. Her eyes too, which do not often need cleaning. If they do they can be dipped in water and rubbed dry with a cloth. She has such big and delicate eyes. I paid extra for glass. Her mouth and her sexual organs can be removed. I scrub them both gently with a toothbrush, and wipe the empty hollows they leave behind. Black gunk like envelope glue sometimes collects there. These parts of her must be regularly replaced. The new ones come packaged in zipseal bags, smelling tripely of factory lubricant, unrecognisably twisted. To fit a new one in place, you must first remove the old, peel and scrub away the dirty gum that held it, then flex out a new mould, fresh clean parts of her that slot perfectly into her emptiness’s. The blonde down between her legs requires special attention. It is real, embedded in the silicone. I wash it with water, tease out tangled hairs, and rub in conditioner to keep it soft. After she is clean we sleep beside each other. I close her eyes with two gentle fingertips. This is my favourite time with her, when she smells like a new car, like when I first opened the box. I say her name into the complex flesh knot of her ear, and I listen to her chest and sometimes it is very much like she’s breathing.
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Sarah Passingham SHORT FICTION COLUMN: CAPSULE GUILT
I
n the last few years, the British short story has been given a real leg-up. For a time, it was thought that the passing of Somerset Maugham, Saki, Orwell, Kipling, Mansfield, Woolf, Wodehouse and many more heavyweights far too numerous to list, marked the collapse of the short form in everything but literary journals and The People’s Friend. I am talking about the UK in particular, as this determined neglect did seem to be an exclusively British trait; in almost every other country, writers and readers have been creating and enjoying short stories without pause. But, for a time here at home, it really did seem that fiction only existed as a full-length novel and that the short story was floating upside down, gasping for its last breath somewhere out in the doldrums. Then, in 2005, along came the BBC National Short Story Award to reverse this indifference, and all at once everyone was talking about short story writers, and how this exquisite, jewel-like form cuts with the sharpness of a rapier, taking skill and artfulness to master. And didn’t we all bask in reflected glory, enjoying real financial accreditation at last (£15,000 prize money is not a sum easily dismissed), revelling in a public re-discovery of something that we had known all along? Of course we did. We do. And, even better, a fair few women and BRITTLE STAR • 73
Kitty Coles TOMATO SOUP CAKE Old cogs, the thoughts won’t turn. They stick and jar. There is nothing, then, to be done there. Leave them be. The house seems heatless. I stalk from room to room, in my dressing gown, and peer at the furnishings as if there is something lost that can be found. I will light the oven, let its breath make the windows drip. I will take down my books from the shelf and look and look as if, old spells, their commands could start me again. ‘Melt butter in a pan.’ Its yellow weight, the reek of cinnamon, makes something of the nothing in these rooms. ‘Stir in the flour with a metal spoon.’ I stir. I fold. How easy making is.
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Ian Skillicorn …THEN WE’LL BEGIN…
T
here has been a resurgence of interest in the short story in recent years and it’s this enthusiasm for the form which was behind the idea to create a new online home for audio stories: The Story Player. The aim of The Story Player – founded by the community interest company which promotes National Short Story Week – is to stream stories by the best published and up-andcoming English-language writers, as well as translated fiction from around the world, and a selection of classics from our literary heritage. It’s a place for writers, readers and listeners. The stories on The Story Player are by acclaimed and award winning writers, including Bloomsbury authors Jon McGregor, Lucy Wood and Roshi Fernando; Scott Prize winner Jonathan Pinnock; V.S. Pritchett Prize winner Martina Devlin; and Susie Maguire, who has had over 30 stories broadcast on BBC Radio 4. These stories have been produced by Ian Skillicorn and David Jackson Young, who has produced short stories for BBC Radio 4 and recently adapted the Lucifer Box novels by Mark Gatiss for Radio 4 Extra. Three stories have been produced by students from The Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. The Story Player website also streams two series BRITTLE STAR • 85
of The Write Lines, the online radio programme for writers, presented by well known broadcaster and author Sue Cook. The pilot phase was launched on November 1st 2013 thanks to a collaboration between a group of people and organisations involved in the short story form; everyone involved in the project gave their time and talents free of charge. As a result, eight original recordings were available to listen to from the launch date, with a further eight being added to the website each Friday until the end of the year. All of the audio content is available to listen to via the website, and can be downloaded to PCs, laptops and mobile devices, and shared via Facebook, Twitter and other social media. Ian Skillicorn is the Founder of The Story Player and National Short Story Week The Story Player – www.thestoryplayer.com Twitter – @thestoryplayer
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Contributors PETER ASHER’s poetry has been published in Dream Catcher, Roundyhouse and Minotaur. JEN CAMPBELL won the Jane Martin Poetry Prize 2013. KITTY COLES poems have appeared in Mslexia, Iota, and The Journal. KRISHAN COUPLAND won the 2011 Manchester Fiction Prize for ‘Days Necrotic’. BARBARA CUMBERS has been published in Smith’s Knoll, Poetry London and The Rialto. CAROL BEADLE has an MA in Writing from Sheffield Hallam University. Her poems have appeared in several magazines. CAROLE BROMLEY’s first collection, A Guided Tour of the Ice House, was published by Smith/Doorstop in 2011. SUE BURGE’s poems has appeared in Mslexia, Writers’ Forum and Poems in the Waiting Room. DHARMAVADANA’s poems have been published in Magma, Smith’s Knoll and South Bank Poetry. ROSEMARY DILLON is a native Londoner, where she still lives. BRIAN DOCHERTY’s latest book is Woke up this Morning (Smokestack Books, 2012). PETER EBSWORTH’s first full collection Krapp’s Last Tape – The Musical is forthcoming from flipped eye. JONATHAN EDWARDS’ first collection will appear in 2014 from Seren. JEAN HARRISON has two collections from Cinnamon Press; Junction Road and Terrain. LISA KELLY’s pamphlet, Bloodhound, was published by Hearing Eye in 2012. EMMA LEE’s collection Yellow Torchlight and the Blues is available from Original Plus. ROBIN LINDSAY WILSON’s first collection, Ready Made Bouquets, was published in 2008 by Cinnamon Press. KATHERINE LOCKTON’s poetry has appeared in Magma, The Delinquent and Northwords Now. KATIE LUMSDEN has published in Streetcake and Inkapture. JULIE MELLOR’s pamphlet, Breathing Through Our Bones, was published by Smith/Doorstop in 2012. MAEVE O’SULLIVAN’s collection, Vocal Chords, is due in 2014 by Alba Publishing. ESTILL POLLOCK’s poetry appears in anthologies from Cinnamon Press, Flarestack Poets, and Seren. COLETTE POWER has been published in Interpreter’s House, Orbis and Leaf Books. LAURA SEYMOUR’s poems appeared in Magma, Envoi and Iota. She co-edited Lines Underwater anthology (2013). DEREK SMITH has published children’s books and short stories, and had plays on TV and radio. PAUL STEPHENSON came second in the Troubadour International Poetry Prize 2012, and first in the Magma Editors’ competition. HELEN TURNBULL is studying Creative Writing with English Literature at Kingston University. AL WALKER lives in Brighton. PHIL WALSH’s work has appeared in The North, Orbis and The Frogmore Papers. NATALIE WHITTAKER won first prize in the Virginia Warbey Poetry Prize in 2011 and 2012. MERRYN WILLIAMS latest work is Effie: A Victorian Scandal, a biography of Ruskin’s wife. BRITTLE STAR • 87
BRITTLE STAR
97 Benefield Road, Oundle, Peterborough, PE8 4EU web: www.brittlestar.org.uk twitter: @brittlestarmag facebook.com/brittlestarmagazine
EDITORS:
Jacqueline Gabbitas Martin Parker
FEATURE WRITERS: Andrew Bailey Paul Blake Sarah Passingham
PRODUCTION:
Designed by www.silbercow.co.uk Printed by Imprintdigital, Exeter
Issue Thirtythree / Autumn 2013 © Brittle Star and with the contributors ISSN: 1467-6230-19 Brittle Star is a not-for-profit magazine that receives no funding and is produced on a voluntary basis by a small team of dedicated writers and arts professionals
SUBSCRIBE: £12.00 (£20 World) for two issues. Make cheques payable to Brittle Star stating start issue (subscription form available on our website) or subscribe online using our simple, secure Paypal system.
SUBMISSIONS: We welcome submissions of unpublished, original work (not under consideration by another publication or competition) in the following categories: • •
1–4 poems 1–2 stories, up to 2,000 words each
Please send with covering letter and SSAE to the address above. Submissions by post only. For full details visit www.brittlestar.org.uk. You will be notified of the editors’ decisions as soon as possible. 88 • BRITTLE STAR
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