Welcome to Issue 38 of StepAway Magazine.

I’m often asked how the editorial team here at StepAway order each issue of the magazine. One poet recently queried whether we simply put what we consider to be the best writing at the beginning of the issue. Another spotted a specific thematic thread, and complimented us on how each piece of poetry or prose harmonised with the next. The fact of the matter is, there is no specific formula. Of course, we always aim for a balanced, congruous arrangement, but our approach to ordering varies depending on the nature of the writing. A StepAway guest editor once commented on how strangely serendipitous it was how submissions from writers unbeknownst to one another can share illuminating and beautiful correspondences. Such pairings seem to drop into the StepAway submissions box on a surprisingly regular basis. Our current issue, for instance, coincidentally features two poems that focus on ginkgo trees. “16th and T, NW” by Keith David Parsons is about walking in Washington DC, whereas “Ginkgo Leaf Epiphany…” by Joan Leotta reminisces about walking the streets of Pittsburgh in the 1960s. Although both are walking narratives, the two poems communicate decidedly different messages. And yet, the writers are united in both having the glorious ginkgo as their focal point. Happenstances such as this do make me smile, as they are a subtle indicator of our shared experience as urban walkers, regardless of our geographic location.

Having said that, StepAway 38 is a strikingly and uncharacteristically discordant issue. The opening poems are about feeling uncomfortable on the street, where the city is a place of judgement,  intimidation, fear, violence, isolation and rebellion. Come the end of the issue, the city is something else. It is a place we return to fondly in our memories, a place where we thrive and find solace. When we were assembling this issue, I worried that the poems collected here clashed with one another. I gradually began to appreciate the clash. Because the city — any, and every city — has the potential to be all of these things at any one moment. It can be both predator and protector, based on individual perspective in a specific moment. And that is perhaps what makes urban walking so exciting. On each walk, we never truly know what the city will give us, will it be our friend or foe, will its streets embrace us, or prove coldly indifferent?

Twelve urban walkers who know how to read the changing face of the metropolis are featured here in StepAway 38: Geoffrey Aitken, Emma Atkins, Quinn Byrne, Lee Campbell, John Grey, Laura Hess, Shaun Hill, Joan Leotta, Keith David Parsons, Luke Sawczak, Maggie Sinclair & Patrick Wright.

So, without further ado, I urge you to trace the myriad of connections in this beautifully  conflicted issue and allow yourself to be transported.

Yours faithfully,

Darren Richard Carlaw

editor@stepawaymagazine.com

It’s uphill all the way. You set off, striding on your long legs. They wobble a bit but, in your mind’s eye, you look confident, suave even. You imagine the long woollen overcoat gives you extra height, broad shoulders. You picture the ironic “varsity scarf” billowing in your wake. You stumble a little. Oops, nearly went over. No-one is watching from behind the curtained eyes of the dour, grey granite buildings. Keep going. Six hours to sleep it off and sober up. That conference paper won’t present itself. You rehearse as you stamp forward; “Rethinking the City: Community and Isolation in Post-Industrial Britain.”

‘Hey pal, got any spare change?’ You can’t locate the source of the voice.

You falter, almost stop, but caution keeps you moving.

‘Ah said, got any spare change? Ah’ve got a wee dug t’feed, man. Ah’m speaking to you. Snobby basturd.’

Footsteps behind. Don’t look round. Your heart, already pumping from the climb, starts to palpitate. Thud-thud-thud inside your ribcage. The shuttered greasy spoon, the halal butcher, the charity shop rush by. The footsteps keep coming. Don’t look round.

‘I’m speaking to you, ya prick.’

Salvation. Headlamps brighten the icy fog. Distant drum and bass, closer, louder – a stretched limo. They know you. The night fills with catcalls and wolf whistles.

‘Hey, hey, Johnny. Hi babe. Looking hot. Woohoohoo, waahay…’  The hens’ night.

The pink car slides by, a cloud of noise and fumes, petrol and perfume.

Quiet follows. The footsteps silenced, the startled predator gone.

The welcome face of the Hilltown Clock, wavering in the wintry haze, a stolid landmark between tenements and high-rises. The stairwell stinks of cannabis and cat’s piss. You don’t care. Two flights and he’s there, behind the locked door. You picture him curled tight, his warm sleepy smell, comfortable. Safe.

Maggie Sinclair

She lit a cigarette in the taxi rank and exhaled that she liked this city. Its energy. Wafting grey smoke, I said the same. Still, it’s a shame there are no gods at Temple Meads.

Emma Atkins

When the pandemic choked us out
I was walking and I heard a child
laughing with her brother on a lawn.
Voices rose behind a fence, and sounds
of trampolining, smells of barbecue
attending then my thefty way to the ravine.
Or families sat across an asphalt river
and called with language to each other.
Windows in the sunset glowed like sky.
I slowed down and I was curious.
In my heart there was a shiver
and I paused and almost wanted to come in.

I was like the deer that wandered
onto Main Street, trotted irresistibly
along by curiosity, lost for sure
but pressing up against the window
of the Shepherd’s Crook, almost ready
to break in and to be among the people.

Luke Sawczak

I stepped in; my hands hovering
over him: a hot car battery
I couldn’t touch. I stepped forward
for the feral love we could become
repeating my mantra of it’s not okay.
what he said to you, it’s not okay.
hoping that, if listened to, he’d let go.
- call me a black bastard again!
crack in the door of his throat
revealing the boy within: larynx
twitching with pitchy reluctance.
so close and I couldn’t. but this
wasn’t about me. these words;
these woods; the ruptured
dam of a man that drink releases
or what heat does: thick spit clogging
a drunk dwarf’s eye as he’s dragged
by the collar of his coat; clang of bone
on a metal post; the skull shaking
like an ugly gong that rang along that
busy, narrow street. no, this was time
returned to its reckless impediment:
seconds wound up, hand against hand,
to strike with mechanical efficiency.

Shaun Hill

drawn to gum-blasted pavements,
where our heels
synced with each other,

things are now
shivering, leaves
with a lustre,

dreams trespassing
their edges,
shadowing skyscrapers,

cafes we fled —
this weight of serendipities, intense
anti-epiphanies

in the city’s cleft
of grief
where all traces decimate,

and I am
a mystic,
emotions dislocated of names —

thank fuck,
the sunset is speaking,
on this occasion, you’re sane.

Patrick Wright

Lee Campbell

Link to poetry film

John Grey

Quinn Byrne

Laura Hess