Steve Sneyd (1941 - 2018): In Memoriam

Photograph © 2001, Gerald England.

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

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

Photograph © 2018, Gerald England.

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

Photograph © 2018, Gerald England.

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

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

Photograph © 2018, Gerald England.

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

IN DESPITE OF PROSPERO

Fall of Ariel
this high brightness coming fast
to free Caliban

***

PHILAE CALLING

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

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

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

He will not be forgotten.

Geoff Stevens (1942-2012)

Geoff Stevens at Barlow Theatre, June 2001, photo © Gerald England
The funeral of an old friend takes place in Sandwell today.

I first met Geoff Stevens in 1985 at the First National Convention of Poets & Small Presses in Liverpool. He had been editing Purple Patch since 1976 and I'm sure we'd exchanged magazines many times but the convention in Liverpool was one of the first times that small press editors had got together to meet each other and their contributors. These annual conventions continued at various locations around the country for over a decade and Geoff was certainly there at most of them.

In 1999 Geoff hosted the first Purple Patch Poetry Convention at the Barlow Theatre in Langley, West Midlands. The internet was still in its infancy then but I'd developed a website and hosted a report of the convention on the site, including a small photogallery of some of the poets who attended. I did the same for the conventions he held in 2001 and 2002, although I wasn't able to attend the latter.

These pages were discontinued after a few years but I've been able to retrieve them from an archive CD onto which I'd saved them. They are now republished at http://www.geraldengland.co.uk/xx/pp.htm.

Geoff was a stalwart of the small press publishing scene and always campaigning for its recognition by the establishment. I recall him writing letters to the Guardian and the Times promoting the strengths of small press poets. In 2008 he even got himself interviewed in the Guardian by Becky Barnicoat.

In 2009 he received the Ted Slade Award for services to poetry.

Most of those who knew him will remember his mordant wit and sometimes sarcastic but never acerbic reviews.


Geoff & Geraldine at Barlow Theatre, July 2002, photo © Eamer O'Keefe
A 2012 Convention at the Barlow Theatre was being planned even before he died and I understand it is still to go ahead on May 26th as a celebration of his life. Details will be found on the Geoff Stevens website which I've been told will continue to be maintained.

Reviews of some of Geoff's collections can be found on NHI Review.

There is an obituary for Geoff in the Wolverhampton Express and Star.

I miss him deeply.

Update Saturday: Just got the latest issue of Handshake in the post which includes 3 poems by Geoff Stevens. Copies are available for an s.a.e from John F Haines, 5 Cross Farm, Station Road North, Fearnhead, Warrington, Cheshire, WA2 0QG.

BHS Yorkshire/Lancashire Group

The Yorkshire/Lancashire Group of the British Haiku Society now have their own website at http://web.mac.com/garycunliffe/haiku/.

One of the first things to be published there is an 8-minute video of a walk in the Japanese Garden at Walkden where the group met in June.

In July JSNW held Japan Day 2008 in the Mountford Hall of Liverpool University, with a wide variety of stalls and demonstrations. The group attended and some pictures from the event can be viewed at http://gallery.me.com/chris.boultwood/100016.

ABC Wednesday - Y is for Yorkshire

This map is reproduced by permission from the website of the Yorkshire Ridings Society (link now defunct).

Known as God's own Country the boundaries of Yorkshire as shown above were established in the ninth century.

When Local Government was reorganised in 1974 some people believed that the old counties no longer existed despite a Government Statement that

The new county boundaries are administrative areas, and will not alter the traditional boundaries of counties, nor is it intended that the loyalties of people living in them will change, despite the different names adopted by the new administrative counties.

Maps of the historical counties of Britain and more information can be found on the website of the Association of British Counties.


The ramparts of Skipton Castle.

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

The former generally contains a number of scholarly articles such as (in the 2007 edition) LEXICAL EROSION AND INNOVATION IN NORTH-WEST DERBYSHIRE by Jon Fyne, which sounds a bit dry and tangential, but is actually a fascinating read. It also includes some excellent original poetry. The latter publication is generally the place for more popular contemporary writing and verse in dialect.

One of the strengths of the YDS is its ability to attract on the one hand, academics whose interests are primarly in language, linguistics or history, and on the other, creative writers and speakers of dialect. My deepest regret as a Council member is my inability to attend meetings these days.


The view from the top of Holme Moss.

My favourite Yorkshire Dialect poet was the late Fred Brown - read his poem Euclid's Childer.

There are several writers of haiku in Scots; one of the best is John McDonald, but so far as I know, I'm the only person to have written haiku in Yorkshire dialect. These SIX YORKSHIRE HAIKU were published in Summer Bulletin in 2002.

wooid stack'd
ahint t'shed
oe'er-ran wi' bahndweed

wheeir t'muck-stacks were
lush trees nah grow
on t'illside

hot efternooin
sheep on t'fells kip
bi a stoan

river agate —
ducks on t'igh bank
waddle i' a lahne

med blahnd
bi t'low Jan'ry sun
Paris ti Hades

ower t'M1
a breet-een'd kestrel
'ovvers

© Gerald England, 2002

Haiku Canada Conference

Haiku Canada held its annual conference and get-together, 18 - 20 May, 2007 at Carleton University in Ottawa.

There is a summary of the Conference Highlights on the Haiku Canada website.

A Photo-Essay Review by William J. Higginson is on Haikai Home.

The Conference is also reviewed in the Ottawa Poetry Newsletter.