ABC Wednesday - B is for Baltic Point, Gdynia

The Polish port of Gdynia was one of the stops on our 2006 Baltic cruise.

Whilst many people went off to the city of Gdansk, I decided to explore more locally and wandered through what I saw as a very pleasant seaside town.


At the end of the promenade is Baltic Point. An old German lookout station from WWII now serves as an information kiosk.

Beyond is the southern breakwater at the entrance to the port.


Whilst the southern breakwater is home to the seagulls and a quiet place for courting couples to meet, the northern breakwater seems to have been taken over by shags.


For more B posts today, visit ABC Wednesday.

ABC Wednesday - A is for Adamson Band

The voluntary wind band was established in 1888 and is based in Dukinfield.


On June 20th 2008 they led the procession at the Gee Cross Well Dressing ceremony.


Photos of the 2008 wells can be seen on Gee Cross Well Dressing 2008.


There is also a short video of the band leaving the Grapes Inn to climb Joel Lane.


Another photo of the band Reflection in Silver is on my photoblog.


The band is also featured on my collection of photographs from the 2006 Well Dressing.


Further information on the band can be found on the Adamson Military Band website.


To see more "A" posts this week, visit ABC Wednesday.

Video of Gee Cross Well Dressing.

June 20th was the Well Dressing Ceremony at Gee Cross, Hyde, Cheshire.

At 2pm the Adamson Band led a procession around six well-sites.

At each site there was a blessing, followed by a verse and chorus of Onward Christian Soldiers. Afterwards there was a short service, entertainment and light refreshments in Hyde Chapel.

Photos of five of the sites can be found at Gee Cross Well Dressing 2008.

More about the history of the ceremony can be found on the Tameside Local History Forum website.

You also see my photographs of the 2006 Well Dressing.

One special photo of the band Reflection in Silver is on my photoblog.

Gee Cross Well Dressing 2008

Today was the Well Dressing Ceremony at Gee Cross, Hyde, Cheshire. The first picture is of Booths Well which this year was decorated by members of the W.I. to celebrate 300 years of Hyde Chapel.

At 2pm the Adamson Band led a procession up Joel Lane to Arnold Hill Well, dressed by children from Holy Trinity School. (no photo)


They returned down Joel Lane to Slateacre Well, which was dresseed by children from Dowson Primary School.


Next they visited Baron Road to the display by 3rd Gee Cross Scout Group.


Then to the Village Green Well, dressed by the Guides, Brownies and Rainbows of Holy Trinity and Hyde Chapel.


The last stop was in the grounds of Hyde Chapel by the display created by pupils of Alder Community High School.

At each site there was a blessing, followed a verse and chorus of Onward Christian Soldiers. Afterwards there was a short service, entertainment and light refreshments in the chapel.

More about the history of the ceremony can be found on the Tameside LH Forum website. You also see my photographs of the 2006 Well Dressing on my own website. One special photo of the band Reflection in Silver is on my photoblog and I'll be publishing some additional photographs later in the week, here and on Hyde Daily Photo.

I have now posted a short video of the band leading the parade up Joel Lane.

Skywatch Friday: Across the estuaries

Last week I took you to Llandudno.

This week's picture, taken on the way back, is from a coach travelling at 50-60mph down the A55; hence a slight lack of clarity. (click on the picture for a larger view)

The small town in the shelter of the Clywd hills is Holywell. Beyond is the estuary of the river Dee. It was obviously low tide. Off the end of the Wirral peninsular is Hilbre Island. On the other side is the estuary of the river Mersey stretching from Liverpool (just visible on the right) to Formby Point.

Above all of this lies sky.

To see more heavenly sights visit Skywatch Friday.

ABC Wednesday - Z is for Zen Speug

photograph © 2008, Euan McDonald

Z is for zen speug which is the blog of John McDonald who publishes haiku in Scots together with translations into English.

Now you don't have to squint at the screen to read his work. He has just published a collection in print titled THE THROU-GAUN CHIEL. Crows, cats and children are perhaps the topics that dominate the book. My favourites are:

furst gorblins -
voar juist gat
roarier

first fledglings -
spring just got
noisier

***

coortin kipple
a coffee atween thaim -
stame heavin

young lovers
a coffee between them -
steam rising

***

ahint steekit hingers -
the new weedower
blethers tae's guidwife

behind closed curtains -
the new widower
talks to his wife

John is not the first poet to write Scots haiku and some might argue he is not the greatest but he is certainly the latest.

JOHN McDONALD: THE THROU-GAUN CHIEL
Cyberwit.net
4/2 B, L.I.G. Govindpur Colony,
Allahabad-211004 (U.P.)
India

ISBN 978 81 8253 117 8
Rs. 100/-

visit the website of Cyberwit.net

You nearly only got a sidesway view of John. I spent a lot of time trying to upload his photograph to blogger. As I wrote in an earlier post, blogger kept rotating the image. I've only solved the problem now by hosting the image on my personal website.

To visit more ABC-Wednesday Z posts go to Mrs. Nesbitt's Place.

New Titles from Cinnamon Press

A number of new titles from Cinnamon Press have arrived on the doorstep in recent months.

WINTER LINES by Daniel Healy (ISBN 978 1 905614 57 8) is a collection of rather minimalist poems. A typical example is

Impression

frost cold
breathing mist
parkland crow
with a broken neck

a vague unease
black, red & white.

DINNER TIME by Holly Howitt (ISBN 978 1 905614 53 0) consists of prose-poems or microfictions. There is quite a lot of quite subtle humour in many of these pieces. One is an account of someone who calls their girlfriends by the names of stores, Lidl, Woolworths, Sainsbury's.

YOIK by Bob Beagrie (ISBN 978 1 905614 40 0) is a much more meatier offering. Yoik we are told

is an original form of Sami music and an integral part of the ancient religion of Shamanism.

and whilst there are sometimes obscure references scattered throughout, the poems in general are accessible like STORM DAMAGE which paints a scene of flash-floods in Newcastle. There is a series of poems about Staithes:

Old Nab squats, a snub at waves and sky
hoarding its rumoured seam of jet
and watching like it always has
for Viking longships
Spanish galleons running before a storm
German battleships in the fog
and the diminishing fleet of Steers cobles
coming and going on the edge of extinction.

ALPHABETS OF ELSEWHERE by Time Keane (ISBN 978 1 905614 38 7) is different again in style with much variety of form from prose poems to the chopped lines of LINES FOR AN IRISH DANCER

for fleet
sweeping feet
spinning reels
fiddles for the air
word crazy epistles
of could-be's
& yesterdays,
...

THE FOSSIL BOX by Richard Marggraf Turley (ISBN 978 1 905614 35 6) is a collection mainly focused on specific places, Blakeney, the Forest of Dean and elsewhere. There is even a series of poems on giants, Welsh, Irish, Norwegian and South American.

JASON SMITH'S NOCTURNAL OPERA by Nick Malone (ISBN 978 1 905614 26 4) is a book of eight chapters; narrative verse interspersed with short prose sections. It is a surreal metaphysical dream. Almost all the verse has centered lineation which I personally found a bit off-putting.

Other collections include BENEATH THE DELUGE by Catherine M Brennan (ISBN 978 1 905614 54 7), SIMPLE ARITHMETIC by Lloyd Rees (ISBN 978 1 905614 45 4), WAITING FOR A WARM BODY TO FILL IT by Kelly Moffett (ISBN 978 1 905614 44 8) and HAULED HEAD FIRST INTO A LEVIATHAN by Iain Britton (ISBN 978 1 905614 42 4). The books retail for £7.99 each.

Blogger problems rotating images.

Is anyone else having problems with blogger rotating images?

I tried earler today to prepare a post for later in the week. When I uploaded the photo from my computer, blogger rotated it 90 degrees.

After other attempts I tried loading a rotated image hoping it might rotate that back to the correct position and it loaded that correctly.

I went into my picasa-album and deleted all the rotated files.

I created these test images and they load up correctly without rotating.

I'm going slightly bonkers here having spent in excess of an hour on this problem.

Acumen #61

The latest issue of Acumen is #61.

Perusing the magazine, my eye lighted upon the title of a poem by Rebecca Gethin

River is the plural of rain

Under the title is a quote from Carole Satyamurti, so maybe the title is a quote too. Alas, the poem doesn't seem to quite hold the promise of its title. I'm reminded of it again, though, when Fred Beake in his article THE ART OF TRANSLATION writes

Language ... is a bit like a river. The same water can pass from source to sea, but context and usage change, and the water that makes it all the way down is diluted by passing streams and rain, and what have you.

The piece I enjoyed most in this issue was Andrew J Symons' account of A VISIT TO JACK CLEMO. As ever, there is lot else to read here.

Acumen
6 The Mount, Higher Furzeham, Brixham, TQ5 8QY, UK
ISSN 0964-0304
£4.50 [$10 USA]
Subscription: 3 issues £12.50 (UK) [£16 Europe or USA sterling; $45 surface $50airmail USA]
visit the website of Acumen

Read reviews of earlier issues.

-

Skywatch Friday: Llandudno

Last Friday we went to Llandudno. It was generally fine and although there was a cool breeze it remained dry. I took in excess of 100 photographs, including some on the way there and the way back.

This is the one I've chosen to show you today. It is taken from the bandstand on the promenade and shows the curve of Ormes Bay and the Great Orme in the background.

Pennine Platform #63

The latest issue of Pennine Platform is #63.

It contains 59 poems on a variety of subjects by some 35 poets, the majority of them excellent writers who have appeared in small press magazines for many years.

This issue also marks the start of a new venture with publication of the first two titles by the new independent poetry publisher Graft Poetry. The poets to be published, in the first instance at least, are ones who have not previously published poetry collections but who seem to the publishers to deserve to be better known in book form. The first two are

• Without a dog by Julia Deakin
• Reader, help me by Andrew Boobier.

Pennine Platform
Nicholas Bielby
Frizingley Hall
Frizinghall Road
Bradford
BD9 4LD
UK

ISSN 0303-140X
£4.50
Subscriptions: 2 issues £8.50 [Europe £10; RoW £12]

visit the website of Pennine Platform

Read reviews of earlier issues.

...

ABC Wednesday - Y is for Yellow Buttercup

This yellow buttercup didn't last long after I took this photograph.

Together with the daisies on the lawn, when our jobbing gardeners came on their fortnightly tidying up visit, they mowed it down.

You can see the before and after pictures on Summer Haiku 2008.

To visit more ABC-Wednesday Y posts go to Mrs. Nesbitt's Place.

Free Lunch #39

The latest issue of Free Lunch is #39.

In the editorial, Ron Offen answers those who have accused him of being a Luddite for not embracing the internet as fervently as some seem not just to prefer him to do so but actually expect him to. Well my answer is, "Why should he?" I'm sure I'm not alone in this opinion. As one who has embraced the internet to a large extent myself, I don't see it as an either/or situation. Each to their own and it is the editor's choice at the end of the day. If would-be contributors cannot accept the editor's decision, then there are plenty of other magazines for them to try.

The main bone of contention is the question of email submissions as opposed to regular snail-mail submission. As Ron points out, he is basically a one-man band. One thing he fears is that switching to email submissions would lead to a flood of submissions and more than he could handle. It is a fair point and is born out by the experience of other editors. This is not surprising as for the contributor it is so much easier to send an email than print and post and provide return postage. Ron feels it would increase the turnaround time between receiving the work and responding. I'm not sure I'd agree with him there, but it depends on other factors too.

Ron is unhappy about his ability to evaluate poems on screen and feels he would need to print-out submissions in order to assess them properly, which is extra paper and ink costs for the magazine to bear. I totally agree that to really attend to a poem intended to appear in a printed magazine, you have to see it actually in print. After a while though you do get accustomed to reading poetry on-screen, and he might find that he only needed to print out a portion of the submissions - many would be obvious rejects from the start.

His other concern is that plain-text email mangles the formatting of poems whilst attachments could transmit a virus. I tend not to agree with him on these points. Looking through the work in the current issue, I can't see any poems where special formatting is absolutely essential. A plain text submission would need nothing more than an occasional note saying specific lines should be italicised. If he were to elect to consider submissions as attachments then provided his AV software was up to date, and he took reasonable care to check the nature of the attachment, the risk of getting an infection would be minimal.

Ron is however making a concession and will consider email submissions from writers abroad. His main reason is that many countries no longer issue International Reply Coupons which is a double-whammy for overseas contributors. The one thing I think he should be concerned about is that the ease of submitting by email, tempts many writers into sending multiple, simultaneous submissions to both magazines printed offline and those that publish online.

Free Lunch
PO Box 717
Glenview
IL 60025-0717
USA

ISSN 1041-0945
$5 [$6 foreign]
Subscriptions: 3 issues $12
[$15 foreign]

visit the website of Free Lunch

Read reviews of earlier issues.

...

The Great Belt Bridge

This month's contribution to Broer som Binder (Bridges between) takes us to Denmark.


girders brace the great belt of sea spanned

words & photo © gerald england, 2007

This was published here in July 2007 in response to the "body of water" theme at One Deep Breath.


A year earlier we had passed under this bridge on the cruise ship Aurora on our way from Gydnia to Oslo.


The Great Belt (Danish: Storebælt) is a strait between the main Danish islands of Zealand (Sjælland) and Fyn. Since 1997 the islands have been connected by the Great Belt Fixed Link.


The whole of the link consists of a road suspension bridge and railway tunnel between Zealand and the island Sprogø, as well as a box girder bridge between Sprogø and Funen. The suspension bridge (known as the East Bridge) was then the second longest in the world but has dropped now to third place.

Here is a slideshow of some of the other pictures I took while sailing under.


A full list of participants to Broer som Binder can be found on Runes TX-blog.

Through a Window

I've given up
researching Latin names
now watch the birdies

text & photograph © 2008, gerald england

In response to the "through a window" prompt at One Single Impression.

Skywatch Friday: Plane over Hyde Chapel

This was taken two weeks ago when I went to the Beatrix Potter Exhibition at Hyde Chapel and was taken on a tour of the grounds.

Another skywatch picture from the same afternoon can be found on Hyde Daily Photo.

For even more Skywatch Friday pictures visit Wigger's World.

Envoi #150

Envoi has reached issue #150 under the new editorship of Jan Fortune-Wood, the sixth to hold that position.

This Gala issue has some eighty pages of poetry all set out in a good clear black typeface on white paper and some 15 pages of review. The reviews are also available on the magazine's website as .pdf files. They are listed under the reviewers and seem to be mostly about three pages long. How easy it will be to find a specific review as the site expands remains to be seen.

Envoi
Cinnamon Press
Ty Meiron
Glan yr Afon
Tanygrisiau
Blaenau Ffestiniog
Gwynedd
LL41 3SU
UK

ISSN 0013-9394
£5
Subscriptions: 3 issues £15

Visit the website of Envoi

Read reviews of earlier issues

ABC Wednesday - X is for Xercise Poles

These, I understand, are xercise poles. Xactly what one does with them, I don't know. I came across them the other week on my way home from Gee Cross Fete. I went up Hill Street and past where the scout hut used to be. Then I walked through some woods and came out at the back of Holy Trinity graveyard. And there I found them.


My other ABC Wednesday X posts this week are ~~ X marks the spot at Hyde Daily Photo ~~ X-country running at Old Hyde ~~ X-stiles at Sithenah

To visit more ABC-Wednesday X posts go to Mrs. Nesbitt's Place.