Dear Reader,

Welcome to Issue 20 of StepAway Magazine.

I’m pleased to report that StepAway Magazine is five years old today.

In the opening to my first editorial on March 21^st 2011, I posed the question: ‘who was the first writer to bring a city to life for you?’ I then discussed Blake’s ‘London’ and how, for me, the poem forged a connection between the urban present and the past, capturing that fear and fascination I experienced when walking in the city as a young boy.

I then namedropped Baudelaire, Benjamin and Poe, flâneurs all, before moving on to twentieth century literary wanderers, such as Frank O’Hara, whose New York walking poem ‘A Step Away from Them’ inspired the title and content of this magazine. ‘This is where StepAway Magazine begins,’ I announced hopefully.

Five years later, when asked ‘which writers bring a city to life for you?’ my answer is simple. For me, the writers featured in this magazine capture the true essence of what it means to walk in a city. Their approach is always fresh, innovative and, most importantly, transportive. Each issue makes me want to lace up my walking shoes and explore the streets. StepAway Magazine owes a great deal to its writers and cover artists, and now is a more than appropriate time to say a heartfelt thank you.

The past five years have flown, and we’ve achieved a great deal. We’ve won a Walking Visionaries Award, which was presented to us in Vienna. We’ve worked with Durham University’s Hearing the Voice Project to create Voicewalks, a creative exploration of inner speech within the context of walking in the city. We’ve celebrated the streets of Fitzrovia with the University of Westminster. We’ve been part of Newcastle’s Festival of Belonging, thanks to Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts and Trashed Organ. And let’s not forget the publication of twenty issues showcasing the work of well over one hundred and fifty new and established writers.

One of the greatest pleasures of working as StepAway editor is being offered the opportunity to share the work of undiscovered writers. In our twentieth issue I am proud to publish a poem by Ruth Nyimba. I met Ms. Nyimba when working on a project for Newcastle City Council. Born and raised in Malawi, she is a prolific writer and a burgeoning talent. I look forward to learning of her future successes as she takes her first steps into a literary world that can only benefit from her honest and deeply moving poetic reading of everyday life.

Issue 20 also provides a worthy home for the work of a startlingly talented set of writers, including: Caroline Boobis, María Castro Domínguez, Sally Long, Ilona Martonfi, Luke Otley, Sue Spiers, Nicole Taylor and Norma Wilow.

Our cover photograph comes courtesy of Roberto Conte. Based in Monza / Milan, Mr. Conte is an architectural photographer whose work has featured in La Repubblica and the Wall Street Journal, amongst others. I was struck by the profound manner in which Mr. Conte captures singularity in an image – how each shot is a meditation on form or pattern. The cover photograph itself is in fact taken indoors, at the Bauhaus Museum in Dessau, Germany. The spectral shadow of the walker, present yet a step away from view, proves an ideal fit for this issue. Mr Conte’s portfolio is as intriguing as it is unmissable, and can be found on his website, with a broader selection of photographs available on Facebook.

Before signing off, I would like to say one last thank you to our dedicated readers. Our readership has grown massively over the past five years, and with your support the magazine continues to go from strength to strength.

Enjoy Issue 20!

Yours faithfully,

Darren Richard Carlaw

editor@stepawaymagazine.com

Ruth Nyimba

Whisper, shout, weep. Jerusalem!

The boy is running ahead, too fast for me in the late afternoon heat. He stops and waits patiently at a bend in the wall but before I can catch up he’s off again, flip-flops smacking on the warm stone. I have to stop, pretend to drink some water as I catch my breath. A forest of TV aerials, satellite dishes and washing adorns the corrugated roofs packed together in this square kilometre of humanity. A small football pitch is just visible to my right, and in a far corner of the City a golden dome is blazing in the sunlight.

A small dark head appears round the corner, giggling.

‘Come Mister!’ he beckons. ‘We nearly there.’

It’s cooler along this section of the wall, shaded by scrubby trees and white stone buildings; churches maybe, and mosques. The muezzin’s call to prayer echoes above the teeming city, over the walls and out into the hills beyond.

‘Here!’

He has stopped at the top of a flight of steps leading down to a small courtyard. Two donkeys are being loaded with baskets of melons whilst barefoot (and bare-bottomed) children play with a ball. A group of black-clad women sit under an olive tree talking all at once, or so it seems, as the men silently continue their work. I wonder if Time has been unravelling whilst I was slowly making my way around the ramparts.

‘This way Mister!’ The boy is already at the bottom of the steps and the men are eyeing me curiously. The women have stopped talking, the children stare. It’s quiet here and I’m a long way from the bustle of the Jaffa Gate.

Like Hansel I follow him down the cool, narrow alleys of the Muslim Quarter. A spice-scented breeze mixed with the aroma of frying meat and clattering pans through the open windows reminds me that I haven’t had lunch. Gradually the dark streets merge into a wider thoroughfare, pale stone warmed by the sun.

I am momentarily confused by the throng of tourists, market stall owners carrying sacks of dried apricots, children (lots of them), nuns, Greek Orthodox priests, backpackers, Muslim women in niqabs, orthodox Jewish women in heavy, dark clothing and hidden hair.

My young tour guide is watching me. What will he think when he becomes a teenager, fired up by the collective history of his home? And what will he do?

Glancing up at a doorway I realise we are on the Via Dolorosa, at the fifth station along Christ’s ‘Way of Suffering’. Simon of Cyrene helped Jesus carry his cross when he stumbled here, so they say. Pilgrims come here to place their hands on the worn stone by the doorway.

The boy carelessly throws out the names of other stations as we pass them, before diving down another dark alley. I trot obediently behind him, regretting that I hadn’t brought more water. Eventually the passage opens out into narrow streets, orthodox Jewish men in their curious, 18th century garb are hurrying through the archways and down steps. For the second time that afternoon I have to remind myself that we are in the 21st century. Stalls selling embroidered skull caps start to appear and there is an urgency now to the stream of men and boys as we turn a corner. And there it is.

Below me is the Western or ‘Wailing’ Wall, the only remnant of the Second Temple destroyed by the Romans, and the holiest spot in the world for Jews. The crowds already praying in front of it are dwarfed by the sheer magnitude of this ancient fortification, whilst armed soldiers patrol the surrounding plaza and perimeter barriers. Then rising high above the northwestern corner of the Wall on Temple Mount is the blazing orb of the Dome of the Rock, its blue Byzantine tiles blending perfectly with the pale Jerusalem stone of the Wall. Recognised as the third holiest place in the Muslim world, Temple Mount with this shrine and neighbouring Al-Aksa Mosque continues to be a lightning rod for Arab-Israeli or Muslim-Jewish clashes, even though both acknowledge it as the place where their shared patriarch Abraham offered up his son Isaac for sacrifice.

The boy waits patiently as I stand before the beating heart of these two faiths, inexorably joined forever by a shared history.

Jerusalem. Whisper, shout, weep.

Caroline Boobis

The angel is poised like a sprinter,
feet about to take off and launch through the air,
spiralling leg muscles, curving and merging
with the curls tumbling down his back,
his wings billowing like sails,
he is ready to fly and would be soaring
but for the bolts binding him there.

Sally Long

Sue Spiers

Some languished in the Piombi prisons in Doge’s Palace. The reclusive old noble woman, the Ghetto Jews in Cannaregio borough, feral covens of cats, and the mad.

Others arrived at earliest dawn with fractured lives. Many found solace. Yellow-legged seagulls. Wooden bridges. Smells of seaweed, clams and squid with lemon, fresh-baked bread and espresso. All those who loved pomegranate trees. Magnolia. Palm trees. The calle, alleyways, streets of the city: palazzi on timber platforms supported by stakes. Faded teal blue shutters. Immured in its blinding light.

Adriatic tides

mingling with the wash of the sea

full moon     plum purple

Ilona Martonfi

the European old in his dark suit
docked in the shadow
eyes the passers-by
plucks a film with his song

as he casts the heroine
pushing her pram in the rain
the gang on the benches
blow smoke rings

the boy with the long gaze
turns back and buttons his coat
takes an exit on a cobble hill
the bow grates against grain

Norma Wilow

Luke Otley

Nicole Taylor

María Castro Domínguez