After what felt like an endless winter, spring has finally descended upon the North East of England. A few days ago, a photographer friend and I met in Newcastle and headed northwards up the A1 to a small rural village called Lesbury. We were picking up on a project that began last year but was repeatedly hindered by wave after wave of inclement weather. After a spot of lunch at The Coach Inn, we began our walk northwards following the course of the River Aln, a salmon river that rises in the Cheviot Hills and meanders its way to the North Sea over the soft sands of Alnmouth. The walk began by crossing Lesbury Mill Bridge, a fifteenth century construction now listed as an Ancient Monument. We paused to examine the fingers of lichen and pillows of viridescent moss that cling faithfully to its parapets. The river bowed eastwards, leading us to a place where two runaway haybales had tumbled down its banks and had been left unretrieved for ivy to tangle across them. Yellow primroses pushed through the recently frost-tightened earth and carpets of wild garlic tanged the cool spring air. A farmer’s field combed neatly in anticipation of its new crop, draped the hillside. The soft lines of the rich, crumbling brown earth led the eye to the horizon, and their intersection with the rigid geometry of Lesbury Railway Viaduct. In use from 1847, the viaduct carries the East Coast Mainline that runs between London and Edinburgh. As weather rolled in from the north, we sheltered beneath one of its eighteen stone arches, listening to the trains thundering overhead.

It was a relief to be outdoors again, to feel that change in the weather that anticipates long strolls unhindered by coldness, darkness, torrential rain or wind. I began to think about publishing StepAway Magazine later that week, and the differences between urban and rural walking. StepAway has been dedicated to the city walker for seven years, and I feel that it is about time that we consider publishing a special issue about walking in the countryside. After all, to step outside the city may be a way of understanding it better. I am keen to gain the feedback of readers and past contributors regarding this idea, so please do email me your thoughts.

With thoughts returning to the city, and our current issue, I am delighted to publish ten new urban walking poems by a new set of thoroughly talented writers: Byron Beynon, Wendy Bourke, Miki Byrne, Marc Carver, Berni Dwan, Jayant Kashyap, Alex MacConochie, Ilona Martonfi, Jake Sheff and Annette Skade.

Our cover photography comes courtesy of the Italian street photographer, Luca Gennatiempo. I first discovered Luca’s brilliant take on street documentary after seeing his postings in the Urban Street Photography Forum. Further examples of his work can be found here and here. I particularly like the way in which the cover photograph is a visual mirror of at least two of the poems included in this issue. I’d be most grateful if you could support Luca by sharing his entry for the lensculture Street Photography Awards on Facebook.

I’d like to offer a big thank you to everyone who contributed to this, our twenty-seventh StepAway. Enjoy the spring issue!

Yours faithfully,

Darren Richard Carlaw

editor@stepawaymagazine.com

if you are in the Munich area,
it is easy to get to by train

on the banks of River Isar
north of the Bavarian Alps

remember shards of shattered glass
from the windows of synagogues,

homes smashed by rioters
Kristallnacht newsreel film 1938:

Take the train to Dachau

light rain upon tall yellow poplars
walk a trail through the woods

the first Nazi concentration camp

go inside one of the barracks
walk around the crematories

stand motionless

you’ll see a few clothes hanging;
utensils, metal plate, the log,

a book of names.

Ilona Martonfi

Berni Dwan

Jayant Kashyap

Miki Byrne

Quantities dawn until noon
Please. A chilly pumice

Progress of dithery clouds
Over ashen, sedate

Façades, gusts out of starling
-laughing beeches through scarves

To kiss throats. No transcription
Of nor significance

In cornices’ lavender
Last flush, lumpish buildings’

Green awnings and cider-warm
Windows, brown silhouettes

Embracing to depart.

Alex MacConochie

we stroll, amble, plod, march, mosey, and text at assorted speeds and trajectories in a myriad of postures, positions, body languages, fashions, affectations, sizes and colors … we do not acknowledge one another

we – each of us – have our own story of fate, fortune and folly … our various levels of sagacity in the game-of-life hinted at by diverse expressions of scowls-to-smiley lip curls … the labels in our clothing – less definitive – though, many of the suited-ones, look beat-and-bushed – heads hanging heavy – as in: bad day … or bad week … or relationship … gone bad … street people mingle in the mix

we are all the same – at that moment – in that place we are . . . . . . . . . . passersby . . . . . . . . . . in every sense of the word – and we take to the role with the studied street-smart acumen we began honing with our first timid steps onto the playgrounds of our lives

eventually, we get into cars or buses or board the skytrain … we enter restaurants or condos or plop ourselves down on sidewalks huddled against concrete facades … having passed by … and having been passed by

Wendy Bourke

The market resembled a painting
called “Still Life with Ants” by
a local vagrant who also painted
beach scenes. The aisles from above
probably looked like Scantron
sheets, all the bubbles filled in by
No.2 pencils. (A test graded right
after by a computer, but the results
aren’t released until you’ve nearly
forgotten you were tested.) I bartered,
over Gallo beer, for a soccer jersey

and humanist morality with a man
who bred greyhounds for racing on
the side. A blind girl sold beautiful
blankets – the Homer or Milton
of street vendors – but I purchased
a Mayan calendar handsomely
displayed by a skull spurting
sunshine like a winter landscape
before the asystole of spring which,
like many things, is never just right.

Jake Sheff

Mid-air mops river, wets lips,
thin light bounced from sea-coal glass,
across the Tyne in a total eclipse.

Warehouse buildings, water-dipped,
give way to station exit queues,
the city takes another shape.

Rush hour folds in and sits,
a busload stalls mid-street to look,
across the Tyne in a total eclipse.

Onlookers in sunglasses, faces tipped,
together track the inching moon,
the city takes another shape.

The brimming circle hangs, shifts:
a thumbnail of white sunlight bursts
across the Tyne in a total eclipse.
The city takes another shape.

Annette Skade

Byron Beynon