Hereford Cathedral tower – Only one survivor

Hereford cathedral used to have two towers, but the one at the West end collapsed on Easter Monday 1789. If it had fallen the day before many people would have been injured but as it is there were no reported casualties.

Hereford Cathedral with two towers, circa 1742

This means the only tower left to climb is the central tower over the crossing. To reach the staircase that takes you to the top you must enter the Cathedral and go to the North Transept. Although the main cathedral is from the 1100s this transept dates from the 1300s. Unlike the Southern transept which is older, this is modelled on the newly built Westminster abbey. Money was pouring in to Hereford at this time thanks to pilgrims visiting the tomb of Thomas Cantilupe – a tomb that has been repainted in the original – garish – colours. A reminder that cathedrals were not always grey walled but were painted and decorated to an extent that is hard to for Protestant eyes to comprehend.

[Show as slideshow]

View to the Vicar's choral

Bishop's palace

 

The West End

 

Mappa Mundi building

Spiral staircase

The 14th century ceiling from above

Tufer and limestone

South transpet

Nave

North transept

Choir

Builder's mark

Builder's mark

 

Clock

 

Old bridge

 

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Once you’re through the door with one of the informative guides you will be taken up the spiral staircase to the ceiling above the North Transept. This is a revelation if you were expecting something as beautiful as the ceiling you looked up at from the ground and marvelled at. Here you can see the sand and lime mortar construction, as well as the Tufa which was used to build it. Tufa was used instead of the normal limestone as it is lighter.

Next you’ll look round the Lantern gallery. By now you’ve walked up 29 metres, so you’re over half way to the great view at the top. The lantern gallery was originally not visible from the ground as there was a ceiling over the crossing. After the collapse of the west tower the boffins decided to strengthen the central tower and remove the load it was bearing. So the ceiling was taken down and the bell chamber was moved higher to brace the tower. Also, possibly to reduce weight, windows were added to the tower to bring more light into the cathedral.

As you walk around the Lantern gallery you will get a good view of the patterned tiles below. You will also see the Denton tomb in the South transept. If you look closely you will make out not just a man and a woman lying on the tomb, but also a baby. This signifies that the woman died in childbirth.

From above the nave you get the best view in the cathedral – east towards the high altar and the Lady chapel. You can also see the large cathedra or Bishop’s chair on the right, as well as the centuries old King Stephen’s chair. This is only ever used by the monarch when she is visiting. Although it is called King Stephen’s chair it is actually slightly later, having been dated to the late 12th century – King S died in 1154.

Next stop is the ringing chamber. Danger of death, the sign says as you enter, so don’t touch the bell sallies. English bells are kept in a precarious ‘up’ position, so if you pull the rope the bell will rotate and momentum will pull you up through the ceiling. Unless you let go, but human nature means you tend to grab on harder and try and stop it. And with the largest bell weighing in at the same as two minis, you’re not going to be able to stop it.

Finally you make it up to the top of the tower. Watch your head as you exit onto the roof. On a good day you can see Wales to the west, the Malverns to the east and Clee Hill to the north. Hay Bluff, the Skirrid and the Sugar loaf can all be seen as well. Look for the large castle green where there was a castle as big as Windsor before the civil war. Look at the Old bridge over the river. One of the arches was blown up in the civil war and was rebuilt slightly more thickly than the rest of the bridge. There was a tunnel from the cathedral to the bridge but it has sadly collapsed over the centuries. I reckon we should raise money to excavate it…

Enjoy your visit. There is a charge to climb the tower and it is not open every day. Check http://www.herefordcathedral.org/visit-us/cathedral-visits and phone to make sure it is open before you travel.

My story

Statue in the Square is my first book, it being a visionary fiction story about Destiny. Because of the content of this book, it appeals to thirty something professional women, those whom have established a career but are now realising there is more to life. The story raises questions that we all feel at some point in our lives, questions that cause us to evaluate what we are doing and where we are going. This book teaches that we all have a unique life-plan programmed into our DNA code and, unless we unlock this code, we shall not fulfil the true potential within. Through the use of fiction, we are shown how to do this, with the main character drawing on spiritual and scientific reasoning, as well as positive and cynical attitudes……….aspects we all encounter on a daily basis.

I started writing this book, intentionally, in 2008, although half of it was done prior to this. At every opportunity I would write, starting each day with my mornings pages (which are literally three pages of random, creative writing). At all times I carried a notebook and noted down observations whenever I felt the urge. When I went back through my books in 2008, I realised I had a great collection of material which could be formed into an inspiring, life-changing read.

At first I wasn’t too sure where the book was going, but I persevered with it, just letting the words flow through me. After several edits, I decided to ask a friend of mine, Anne Kershaw, if she would act as an editor (her background was in educational publishing and poetry). At first I was very nervous – sharing your work and hence the inner ‘you’ is quite daunting – but I knew I had to overcome this barrier. Anne was meticulous in her approach, opening my eyes to how the work could be improved and drawing out of me a much finer analysis of the book. Several edits later, and it was ready for the market.

Initially I made the book available as a downloadable PDF via a couple of generic sites, but sales were low and slow. I thought I had struck gold when a daily newspaper asked to publish my marriage story, but surprisingly this failed to generate any sales. It wasn’t until the uptake of Kindle, and then print-on-demand paperback books, that sales began to increase.

From designing the cover of the book to the description on Amazon, I controlled every aspect, ensuring that I fully communicated my vision for the book in the marketplace. This was (and is) important to me so that people know what they are getting by buying the book. The cover has to convey the tone of the book, whilst its description makes it clear what a person can expect to experience from reading it.

In terms of publishing and selling the book, I have not been in-yer-face. Rather, I have allowed people to come to me in their own time and, when they have, they have shouted about the book to others. This has been mostly evident on Facebook. Friends have known about the book, and I regularly upload information about it, but I have never blatantly asked anyone to buy it. They have come to me, deciding to take a chance on it when the moment has felt right to them. It is at this moment that the book has had the most impact in their life; hence sales have increased via word-of-mouth.

This success has led to regional newspapers covering stories of the book and regional radio offering me interviews, which in turn has created more interest and on-going sales. I have found that once the book starts to chart in its genre, especially in the Top 20, then it begins to appear as recommendations in marketing emails generated by Amazon, potentially reaching thousands of people.

Another secret to my success is the fact that I genuinely believe in the content of the book and its ability to have a profound and positive effect on a reader’s life. It is non-intrusive and yet very insightful, and I deliberately make my work easy-to-read and of average length so as to appeal to someone whom wants to have a good read on, say, a two hour train journey or a flight, something that does not require too much time and effort. I am sensitive to the needs of our ‘busy generation’ and am also aware of how many other distractions are an essential part of people’s days. I respect the reader and his time, so a quality product that fits in with his/her habits is a pre-requisite of my work.

Recently I have been given the opportunity of developing a business workshop based on the principles in ‘Statue in the Square’ and my forthcoming book, ‘The Naked Raver’ (release June/July 2012). Acutely aware that this is a prime marketing opportunity (as well as a practical step in personal/professional development), I will step-up-to the mark, fully appreciative of the fact that all exposure leads people to my work and that, by genuine engagement, sales will continue to increase.

If I was to sum up the root of my success, I would call it the four P’s: Passion (for the creative writing process and the empowerment of others), People (knowing who I am speaking to and why I am doing it), Product (ensuring it is the very best I can give at this moment in time), and Prayer (connecting Spiritually to my life’s work and the potential within me). Anyone can adopt these principles and achieve success.

About the author

Joanne St.Clair has a background in aerospace engineering, education and the music industry. The focus of her writing is that of personal empowerment and spiritual development, in a way that connects to an audience not targeted by the current wave of motivational/personal development authors (think Noel Gallagher meets Paulo Coelho; Bill Bryson meets Rhonda Byrne; The Sun meets Sun Tzu).

Further details can be found at www.thenakedraver.com

As 2 a.m. came around, I decided to begin my long return to my neighborhood. I spoke my words of departure to my friends, and made my way to the nearest subway entrance.  Being that it was long after midnight, it took me nearly twice as long to return home than it took to make it to the bar originally. A sluggish two hours of desolate public transit later, and three fourths of through my trip, I arrived at the first of two stations needed to return to my apartment. In order to transfer from the first station to the second, I had to walk for just two blocks.

As I made my descent from the subway platform to the sidewalk, the streets were completely empty; no cars, none of the usual AM-vagrants; just me. The whole block ahead of me laid in stillness like I had never witnessed in such a place before.  I continued forward in disbelief. This is New York City! Even when there are no people walking, there’s always a car in the road, folks resting on benches, youths out way past curfew, shady characters on corners or in between buildings, and even when no people are visible, there are always sounds of life! But not on this night. The only sound to be heard was the mellow hum of streetlights and the pangs of litter made mobile by the otherwise discrete breeze.  The street maintained its familiar black-asphalt hue while everything around it was tinged a golden orange by the countless streetlights.  Everything below the deep violet sky took on only one of three colors; black, brown, or gold. It was surprisingly beautiful.

About half way through the second block of my walk, I noticed the only other living creature in the vicinity exploring the sidewalk across the street.  Large, beige, and moving on four legs; at first glance I assumed it was a pit bull. After further examination of its size and movements, I realized it couldn’t possibly be that. Sauntering about the sidewalk without a leash and swerving its weighted head, looking upon every feature of the street with alien curiosity. Then, it focused its wandering gaze upon me. It was at this point that I made the distinction that the creature was in fact a lion (well, it was a large mountain lion to be exact). Our eyes made contact. Suddenly, the wandering lion shifted its course and proceed to make its way undoubtedly toward me. I (still dumbfounded by what I was seeing) had yet to break our shared gaze. I noticed the lion’s eyes maintained the same look of wonder as it tilted its head to the side.

After it had stepped about 6 feet in my direction, my mind’s judgment returned and I decided that I should make my way away from the lion immediately. Knowing that running would likely excite it, I opted to walk calmly across the intersection; all the while keeping my eyes focused on the lion. Once I made it across, I began to go up the stairs into the second station.  About half way up the staircase, I sprinted into the station and encased myself behind its heavy wooden doors. Once inside of my safe-haven, I looked out a window to see what the lion was up to. Turns out, it had not followed me at all. The lion was simply standing in the middle of the intersection looking up at me still. Our eyes contacted once more; still eyes of only wonder. Once our gaze ended for its final time, I noticed that a line of three cars had formed behind the stationary lion. The driver of the first car seemed to be petrified by what he was seeing in front of his vehicle, while the drivers behind him exclaimed “That’s a lion, son!” and veered frantically from behind him, and sped past the large feline blocking the road. Even in the midst of all of the commotion around the lion, it stood calmly in the intersection, looking up at me still.

Filmshare – The Plan

In order to get a random location we release DVDs into the wild via Twitter.

We send the DVD to one of our Twitter followers who has Retweeted the details .

They watch it and add a comment to this page saying where they are and what they thought of the film. Then they release it into the wild again – either giving it to a friend or handing it to a stranger (Beware of strangers, don’t accept sweets from them) or…

They watch it and add a comment here and release it into the wild again.

We all visit this page to see where the DVD has got to. If we can figure it out we’ll add a map of the travels as well.

Rules -

The next DVD to be released will be mentioned by @flaneurzine on Twitter, so please follow flaneurzine if you want to take part.

The DVDs are REGION 2 – playing in the UK and Europe.

We will release the DVD to one of the Twitter users.

That’s about it. We’ll add more rules when we think of them.

First DVD to be released:

So what do you have to do?

Follow @flaneurzine on Twitter.

ReTweet a new DVD announcement.

Be chosen.

Get DVD in post.

Watch said DVD.

Release it into the wild again

Add your comments to this page.

We were somewhere on the scenic Oregon coast.  I got online and Googled for goat dairies on the west coast.  I followed a link to the Oregon Cheese Guild which led me to Ferns’ Edge Goat Dairy in Lowell, OR.  I sent out an email to Shari Reyna, with whom we met within the week.  She happened to have positions available, and so began our new country life.

Milking Parlor

After working last in an office and having a relaxing two month vacation, the first night of bucking hay, wheeling it around in a hand cart to dole out to the various barns and pens, filling water buckets, moving goats, washing udders, milking, cleaning the milking machine, scraping the parlor pad after the girls had waited their turn to eat grain and be milked, then doing the second round of more hay and alfalfa and water, left us exhausted, aching, reeking of goat, and wondering just what in the hell we had gotten ourselves into.  A month later the aching finally stopped, but exhaustion remained.

Oregon does not have the ideal climate for raising goats.  The long, rainy winters meant a lot of slogging through mud to get the milking does to the milking parlor.  I was fortunate that I never wound up sprawled in the mud, but I came close a few times!  It was always a good laugh when other coworkers did!  Remember that twice per shift feeding I mentioned?  The milking does were kept 50 yards uphill from the dairy, and so twice each shift I’d have to lug the full barrow up a mud lane (mud about 6 inches deep), a headlamp on was the only light source at night.

What about the cheesemaking?  Well, if you want to make cheese, it’s best to know how the milk is produced.  In addition to the farm end of the business, I also worked part of the time in the cheese room.  At first I simply rolled and packaged logs of chevre, coating them with ingredients where called for.  Next I began ladling the curd from the vat and into various molds; pyramids, truncated pyramids, and rounds.  I also ladled the curds into cheese cloth for “bulk chevre” (the chevre to be left plain or mixed with ingredients) which is hung for about 16 hours to release whey.  I then learned the recipes for the different flavored chevre’s that we offered.  Finally I passed a test to receive my pasteurizer license from the ODA (Oregon Department of Agriculture) and was able to pasteurize the raw milk without supervision from another licensed pasteurizer.

Ferns’ Edge Goat Dairy also sells raw milk.  We used an “antique” bottling machine which was operated by hand, filling glass bottles two at a time.  While the old fashioned glass bottles had the logo painted on them, we still had to label them with expiration date and UPC stickers by hand.  Such is the life on a small dairy farm, most everything is done by hand with little to no machinery, but that too is part of the artisanal charm, that it is a labor of love.

My advice to anyone desiring to become a cheesemaker is to do as I did.  Follow up with cheese guilds; they are like marketing associations for dairies.  You’ll be able to find a list of dairies who are members of the local guild.  In fact, this is how I found my second and third employers too.  I called, emailed, and showed up at the dairies.  You’ll have to make some sacrifices such as moving, possibly taking a significant pay cut, and doing the dirty work.  Cheesemaking is not glamorous.  It is good, honest, physical work.  The honest truth is that 90% of cheesemaking is cleaning, whether it’s on the farm or in the cheese plant.  I’m not trying to scare you off if cheesemaking is your dream.  I’m just giving you an honest experience of what it was like for me to break into the trade.

Over 90% of manufacturing and materials are sourced from abroad therefore increasing the massive decline on our once patriotic society. We should be supportive and intrigued by projects like Mary Portas’ ‘Kinky Knickers’ and stand up for complete British fashion.

Alexander McQueen; true British icon, took patriarchy to another level, he divulged into the union jack and made it a statement. He made use want to wear our flag, and we followed and did it with pride. Increasingly bearing the question; why do so many of us continue in looking for cheap imported clothes that have no more of a story than a sheet of paper – plain and bland.

Parisians employee their culture; they live and breath their clothes and are increasingly more interested in their most popular current designers and what Parisian fashion has to offer. Likewise with the states; one of the most patriotic countries that thrive and indulge into that nationalist society and are constantly on look out for American bred fashion.

We as a country are not just yet declining there is hope; as there is in many things. We are still the sixth main country in providing manufacturing clothing but why not be the first. Why are we not the pinnacle of the fashion world? Why don’t we stand up for our country and show the world that we as the British public and community can produce innovative outstanding pieces that outdo all the designers that are over powering us.

Sir Phillip Green; god bless you, you angel. Your collaboration with the British Fashion Council should hopefully in-turn influence other high street stores to focus more of British fashion. Although Topshop are not quite there yet, the effort is there and they are trying; we salute you! The British Fashion Council aims to bring British designing and manufacturing back to the UK as they feel that it will boost the economy; who would have thought, fashion bringing Britain out of this hell hole…

Britain is never going to be as cheap as China, India and Bangladesh… but who wants to be? We can produce high quality clothing with British people make for the whole world. Increasing job prospects for the youth of today; widening their horizons and allowing them to see what the fashion industry has to offer them.

To see what could happen if we all work together as a nation watch ‘Mary Portas – The Bottom Line 4od’ Love your nation, love you land, British born and bred!

Amongst the bands on stage will be Clean Bandit, the unhinged rock and roll of The Shoestrung, Tinashé, Cleo Sol, The Magic Numbers and Manchow. There’s also a kid’s garden and an art auction. Urban muralist Alexandros Vasmoulakis is visiting to create a spectacular artwork on the day.

What else do you need to know?

All the funds raised go to West Heath, a very special school which uses education to rebuild the lives of emotionally traumatised children.

What are you waiting for?!

More details: www.lawnfest.co.uk

beauty is the rain

falling on puddles

making perfect circles

at our feet

timid is the mouse

hiding in the kitchen

whiskers twitching

in the shadows

soft is the dog

sleeping on a cushion

a patch of darkness

on the bright cloth of day

and happy are the children

playing in the garden

bright flowers

trembling under the pale blue sky

NINA Heeled Jelly Sandals - Topshop

With summer soon approaching, there is  a plethora of trends to try your hand at. Amongst the usual suspects of nautical, pastels and romance, there are also the micro-trends. The small crazes that crop up soon to be labelled as a fad, or something we should have tried much sooner. For every peter pan collar, there is the jelly shoe. That’s right, the jelly shoe.

During a routine browse of Topshop, in between the ballet pumps and gladiator sandals, a small section was adorned with the shoe. In both pink and black versions, they resemble the pair most of us wore during various seaside excursions. Back then, they were considered cool but now, is it one nostalgia trip too many? Sure Chanel put the clog back on the fashion map and Alexa Chung is still donning her faithful dungarees, yet the jelly shoe leaves me unsure…

Initially, I felt compelled to shoot down the notion. Living a short train ride from London, where was I going to wear such a thing? Though if you think about it, we could all grow to love it. The chunky mid-heel. The school shoe-esque buckles. The perfectly rounded toe. I think the jelly shoe may have just won me over.  Baby, can you handle this?

In the bedroom, women perceive that they are on equal footing with men, but this is façade. Women are expected to behave in a sexual manner and to want sex; this is evident from the way women are portrayed in the mainstream media and filters down from the media into the consciousness of everyday people, subtly objectifying women as objects of sexual desire and pleasure. This sexualisation of women not only re-enforces male objectification of women, but also normalizes it in the minds of both genders.

If a woman goes back to a male friend’s loft apartment after a hazy night out and he wants to have sex with her, does he expect it or desire it? Often a man takes it as a given that if a woman comes back to his apartment she will then be having sex with him, or least engaging in some sexual activity; what else would she be doing there? This is a discriminatory way to think because if one looks at the situation from this male-centered perspective and ignores the woman’s actual intentions, wishes, and motivations, at best this perspective places an expectation of sex upon her and, at its worst, an obligation. It is common place for a woman to find herself in a situation at the end of a night with a man, an acquaintance, a friend, a date, someone she’s just met, etc… where the man is expecting her to have sex with him, but she doesn’t want to. What had she ought to do? Say ‘no thanks’ and walk away, leaving the fella feeling a little disappointed- tail hanging between his legs? I find entertaining this option amusing since it is probably the least realistic outcome. In the real world the man will most likely try to persuade her that this is not the case and that she actually does want to have sex with him, she just didn’t realize it yet, but in ten or thirty minutes time she will be gagging for it! All one has to do is be persistent. Is this really legitimate behaviour? It’s perfectly normal behaviour which goes mainly without questioning; if a woman has been persuaded into consenting to sex, can this be considered a true autonomous choice? Why is it considered normal and legitimate for men to talk a women into to having sex? But surely if she really doesn’t want to have sex, she’ll just keep on saying no; she wouldn’t change her mind. Again this male orientated  way to look at things ignores the pressure placed on a woman to say yes not only by the man in the situation but also by society, a society in which women are presumed to be having lots of sex and told that they should want to have lots of sex. Sometimes it takes a more confident, self-assured and stronger woman to say no than it does to say yes. The point I’m trying to make is that in the bedroom, the imbalance of power between men and woman still exists with women pressurised into compliance.

Women are lead to believe they have freedom in the bedroom, but it’s simply an illusion; real sexual equality in the bedroom doesn’t come from more women having more sex but from more men listening to  and respecting a woman when she says no the first time. When this situation arises, where a woman knows she only has to say ‘no thank you’ once,  we’ll be on the way to real sexual equality.

The Monuments Men was a group of specialists who, during WW II, risked everything to save works of art from Nazi plunder.

Robert M. Edsel has collected in his book, The Monuments Men, the story of these people who returned 5 million works of art during the war. The impulse that led to Edsel to write this book was the looting Baghdad suffered as a result of the war, and in 2007, he founded The Monuments Men Foundation (http://www.monumentsmenfoundation.org/).

It was not easy for these men and women to save so much art during the second world war: some pieces were locked in the basement of the Hermitage, others took works from coffins (like some of Rembrandt), and the Mona Lisa was saved, hidden in an ambulance. Luckily, they did encounter the aid of some Nazi workers who were not in favor of the unjust and cruel spoliation (http://cultura.elpais.com/cultura/2012/04/21/actualidad/1335027270_301791.html).

George Clooney has decided to move this story to film. It is fortunate that someone with so much media coverage would use his power not only to sell their image, but to tell these interesting stories. The book The Monuments Men came out here, in Spain, just a couple of weeks ago; I have not read yet, but it is certainly a book that I will not ignore, and I think we can find amazing things on its pages.

(cover image property of Robert M. Edsel)

Indonesia is a country a little off the beaten track, except of course the island of Bali. However this large and sprawling nation has many aspects and Java, the most populous island right next door to Bali, is really somewhere to explore.

Coming from Bali it’s a short ferry ride to the mainland, but Java really is pretty big. About 1000kms end to end and a couple of hundred across, and is roughly rectangular in shape. At the eastern end is the Indonesian capital Jakarata, a surprisingly welcoming, developed and clean place now. At the western end is Banguwangi and the ferry to Bali.

photo credit: tropicaLiving – Jessy Eykendorp

I was there recently on my way to the second city of Java, Jogjakarta, or Jogja for short, which is at least a 15 hour bus ride away from the ferry terminal. Even the excellent train service, available throughout the island, would take almost that and having traveled a few hours to get to the mainland from Bali this seemed a bit much. Looking at the map a black spot with Jember written next to it seemed within easier reach. The taxi driver knew exactly where to get the five hour long bus.

As often happens in South East Asia (SEA) there was a service literally just leaving as we arrived. Bags were magically transferred by what seemed like a small army of conductors and porters and within a couple of seconds we were on our way to Jember and a trip that must be done. Yes, this article is about a bus journey from Banguwangi to Jember, and how this is something that can be recommended, but only for a certain type of traveler. Put it this way, if you are a nervous passenger, take the train.

On the other hand if you like extreme sports or have ever fantasized about being a getaway driver then this is for you. Try to get the very front seat (they are anyway normally avoided by locals for reasons that will become obvious). I was sitting behind and to the left of the driver, and slightly higher, with nothing between me and the 10ft x 10ft glass windscreen. A quick search revealed the almost inevitable lack of a seat belt, so holding on tight is your best option.

photo credit: ZeroOne

The bus/coach itself was in pretty good shape for SEA and almost would not look out of place on a European road. As we started leaving town everything seemed pretty normal, if anything we were going pretty slow and carefully, every few hundred meters picking up passengers throughout the town. Passengers can essentially ask to get off anywhere, and the bus will stop anywhere to pick up a fare. This is the main difference between an official bus driver and someone taking the bus for a five hour joyride through Java, oh and a hat, blue.

At this point a little has to be said about the driving conditions in much of Indonesia. Basically lorries rule the road but are quite slow. Buses are next in the pecking order and are surprisingly fast and agile, and are equipped with very loud airhorns to inform everyone of this fact. Next are cars which are often even faster than the buses. These three categories make up about 20% of the road users, almost all the rest being small motorbikes with one, two, three or even four passengers counting children (but not babies or animals of course) which are also fairly slow. Lastly there are a few cyclists, food carts, buffalo and even some intrepid pedestrians. None of these later categories have lights, which becomes more significant when the sun jumps under the horizon at about six o’clock.

photo credit: *saipal

The road itself is a fairly narrow single carriageway in both directions. The ‘street lighting’ is patchy at best, and for my eyes at least, this patchiness is almost worse than no lighting. This indifferent light is mainly provided by shops, vendors and other establishments which seem to continuously follow the road the whole way. Occasionally some local community body has even made an effort at places which are probably a bit of a blackspot. Lastly we must consider rain. This is a tropical country and rain can come at any time and in stunning quantities, turning our road into a shallow river within minutes.

photo credit: William Christiansen

All these factors must somehow be reconciled with the timetable of the bus, which in its five hours must complete nearly 200kms. This includes a 20 minute stop for a break halfway, picking up and setting down passengers maybe 50 times and about 30kms of winding mountain road. The mathematics will tell you we are looking at an average speed of around 50km per hour. And driving experience will tell you this means often maintaining 70, 80 or even 90kmh. Then considering the average speed of most of the traffic, and the volume, it is inevitable you will be overtaking about 70% of the time! This in a coach, in the dark, maybe the wet, with unlit vehicles and road verges crowded with shops and shoppers. Wow, you really have to admire the drivers, especially if they don’t hit anyone at all. So on with the journey.

photo credit: DMahendra

Once we had left town and the bus was full the journey started for real. Suddenly the engine seemed to spring to life and the coach really started to move. Motorbikes are expected to slow down or even escape to the verge and are essentially ignored for overtaking purposes. A blast of the airhorn warning them that 30 tons of metal is on its way into their carriageway is all the notice they might get. I grip my seat tighter.

We are now going through a small town with parked cars and motorbikes narrowing the road further. Pavements crowded with people are flashing by at 70kmh as we sail up the middle of the road, small lorry on our left (they drive on the left like in UK), motorbikes seemingly everywhere overtaking each other, and an oncoming car rather forlornly flashing its headlights at us. My heart is beating hard, my eyes darting about wanting to see(for some strange reason as I have no control) where the child is going to run out from, or the motorcycle is going to swerve from, or the lorry is going to turn in from. But nothing,  we make it through, no one killed or even injured, a miracle. This miracle happens about every 5 minutes for the next 5 hours, which is why this is such an experience.

At first you are frankly scared for your own safety. Then you are even more concerned about the people who look so vulnerable on their little motorbike as it flashes inches from the windscreen at 80kmh while 130 decibel airhorn tells them off for not having eyes in the back of their head’s. Then you start to realize this is normal, it happens every day, ten times a day on this road, and 10 times a day on a thousand other roads like it all over the country. And then you start to enjoy it. You feel reasonable safe in your 30 ton steel hotel on wheels. You start to realize that actually the other road users are fairly safe as well when this hotel appears to be able to stop from 60kmh to 10 in about 3 meters, and that everyone seems to know what is going on.

At this point, about an hour into the journey I predict, you can relax. You will only need to grip the bottom of your seat when you see something really nasty developing. You’ll have decided where you are going to jump if a crash does appear to be about to happen (the ‘passenger footwell’ area or behind the driver’s seat) so you don’t get launched through the safety glass. And above all you will have pretty supreme confidence in the vehicle, the driver and the whole road system and organization. It works. For a western person it is very different but this is how they have set it up, and it really does generally work.

So sit back and relax and enjoy this cross between a roller coaster and an enormous video game. It truly is a profound, fascinating and exciting experience, much like Indonesia itself. Oh and the cost, 80p each way.

Abdulnasser Gharem was one of the pioneers of what is recognized today as the contemporary art movement in Saudi Arabia. He was among the handful who, back in 2004, in a small hilly town called Abha, wrought up the vision that has slowly and irrevocably materialized in the Kingdom today as the dawn of a new era of art. What seemed like baby steps then, small but well-considered acts with far-reaching impact, proved to be historical strides. At the helm of things then and now, he creates ‘change’ through his art, not the radical and revolutionary kind that so many from the West would like to fit to Saudi Arabia, but a quieter, slower and deeper shifting of attitudes, the kind that he knows would suit his homeland where traditions running back to more than a thousand years are deeply venerated and still present and entrenched in daily life in so many ways.

The Path : What is the way ahead? A meditation on direction and destiny, both individual and collective.

Earlier this month, Abdulnasser Gharem’s facebook status read ‘I will say this a million times over – the real artist is he who creates change rather than talks about the need for change.’ That’s just the kind of thing he’s likely to be caught saying – short, direct, and striking. He has been called the ‘rock star’ of Saudi art because of his signature aloofness, his mixture of ruggedness and tenderness, and the special license of tolerance he seems to have earned for himself. He believes in change from the inside out, and in taking small but well-thought steps towards ideals and goals. In his practical hands-on art, he takes on Saudi Arabia’s social, political, developmental, and behavioral issues in works that sometimes involve a direct personal intervention in situations to raise the overall moral bar of conduct in society. As an artist, he sees his role as imparting instruction through creative means, pretty much like a skillful teacher knows how to get a point across slyly. His work combines a keen psychological insight with a great working knowledge of men and a confidence in new and experimental procedures.

Abdulnasser Gharem uses the metaphor of road, journey, and navigation to address larger issues of the way that lies ahead for Saudi Arabia. His works demand a reappraisal of the whole notion of ‘development’ in Saudi Arabia, demanding more attention to the mind than to infrastructure and procedure. He tirelessly denounces herd mentality and insists on developing a critical perspective on things, questioning whatever context of beliefs and assumptions we are conditioned into believing. The leitmotifs he frequently uses, and the recurrent images in his work, add up to a visual alphabet of navigation itself. He finds the ubiquity of road signs and their linguistic pithiness amusing. The idea of road blocks, the expanse of roads, the aesthetics of its grey concrete, the charting of a trajectory across relentless terrain, the choice of direction take surface frequently in his work, and depict how Gharem’s imagination was influenced by the physical reality of a country in the throes of development. Distrustful of the visible or the obvious ‘path’ that we might take for granted, he re-navigates evolution using by-roads to define a trajectory that goes through the terrain of the mind, and overhauls the mental landscape.

Embedded message reads 'The new world order'. How does one get to the new world order? How does one scratch the line across the mind and in concrete? How does one side-step obstacles and distractions?

A work called Concrete: A sense of direction, some navigation skills and a lot of tact - three imperatives that Saudi Arabia will need as it hurtles into an unknown and uncertain future

His best works impact with a striking clarity and minimalism, and while originating from an intensely local context, catch on to universal realities. One of these is a work called Stamp, a metaphor for bureaucratic stalemate, one of the many roadblocks blocking the way towards change in Saudi Arabia. It consists of a giant wooden sculpture of a stamp reclining on the floor, and a seal with a text on a plastic disc on the floor. The seal reads ‘Have a bit of commitment, please’ and of course, ‘Amen’. This irony between the size of seal and the size of the ‘commitment’ required and the note of vague and indefinite deferral is common in diplomatic procedures in Saudi Arabia, and short of pulling one hair’s out, dealing with it using a tongue-in-cheek attitude is pretty much the only option that remains open to a thinking man. “In Saudi Arabia as in most developing countries, infrastructure-wise, a lot of things are completely state-of-the-art in the cosmetic manner of Dubai glossies, but the procedural complication of systems is still several decades behind. People should understand that their progress as nations is directly proportionate to the perfection and simplification of systems. The effectiveness of systems determines the fate of nations.”

The Stamp: 'Have a bit of commitment ' says the text on the stamp dial. Is your commitment 'big' enough for the bureaucratic resistance you are likely to encounter?

The metaphor of the stamp as a symbol of old-fashioned procedures, bureaucracy and useless formalities is extended further in his ‘stamp paintings’ where instead of the subject, it becomes a canvas, and the very act of writing or painting upon it becomes a silent rebellion. In these ‘stamp paintings’, entire sheets of plywood are covered entirely with letters from stamps rearranged to contain subliminal messages echoing themes of change, high idealism or mysticism – ‘The New World Order’, ‘Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, the rest are also not free’, ‘Commercializing’, ‘Don’t trust the concrete’.  Against this background are sometimes drawn images suggesting high idealism or irony, a picture of the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish or sometimes, a single yellow line called ‘Pedestrian Crossing’ to show a deliberate individual choice or ‘the road less traveled’. In other, more ironic and politically inclined stamp paintings, he shows a smiling Obama next to the caption ‘No more tears’, of which a second canvas reads ‘No or Bad signal’ when the promises become hazier post-elections and signals don’t flow as freely between rulers and people. At all levels, from the typographic rearrangement to the image superimposed upon the recreated ‘canvas’, everything adds up to an effect which is explosive in its force of hope.

Direction is a constant preoccupation with Gharem. In The Path, he merges the aesthetics of the familiar with an infinite overcharge of metaphor. For his performance, he uses the relic of a bridge whose history is obliterated from official records, but alive in popular memory through word of mouth. This dilapidated stub of bridge is in the Tihama region. In 1982, according to local legend, there was a flash flood in the region. As the water rushed in, people from the village, struck with panic, took the advice of one man who told them to climb the bridge for safety. Following him blindly, they clambered atop the bridge, huddling together for safety. In no time, the swell reached them, breaking the bridge they stood on and taking their lives. Gharem resuscitates both the stub of concrete and the stub of history. With a spray can, starting with his brother and recruiting a lot of eager volunteers along the way, he painted the word ‘Al-Siraat’ in white all across the grey cobalt of the bridge. The writing is in opposite directions in the two halves of the road, and from afar, looks like the ripples of water that inundated it so many years ago. The smooth, sturdy strip of grey suddenly drops into an abyss. Undercut by the reminder from local history with the white scrawls of ‘Al-Siraat’ covering its surface, the image posits the contrast between the concrete and the abstract, between the finite and the infinite. For our journey in life, we need faith in our heart more than the concrete under our feet. The visual starkness of the bridge shoulder dropping off suddenly: the deception of its toughness, and from another angle, the branching out of different roads under the bridge converge into a metaphor for choice- its necessity as well as its precariousness.

Abdulnasser Gharem has his facts right. He knows that the artists in Saudi Arabia enjoys the privilege of tacitly addressing issues that might be uncomfortable to broach directly or solve through conventional mainstream channels. Art is a by-road, a side lane; in a manner which is established, understood, and respected in Saudi Arabia, where an official censorship of ideas still prevails in mainstream media, and people are extremely cautious while expressing themselves, the artist can perform with an advantage of license. Gharem has earned himself this license.  He sees the road ahead clearly, just as he sees the obstacles dotting it, and his role in the scheme of things as a leader.

All images by artist.

The invention of photography as the first possibility of the ‘fixation of shadows’ falls into the year 1839 and soon spread from Europe to the rest of the world. In China people were also engaged in photography, but – as in the rest of the world – it was initially not about art. Due to the fact that the industry in the West with its private companies like Kodak and Leica discovered a mass-market sector, photography was everywhere understood as an expression of modernity, which was within a short time used for their own purposes. From holding on to private moments, using the perpetuation of portraits and scientific accuracy, the medium was since the early 20^th century also used as a propaganda tool of political interests – from the cover-up of the American depression to the transfiguration of National Socialism to the obeisance of Russian socialism to the propaganda of Maoism.

Once upon a time …

Traditional photojournalism is a rather small field in photography, but has formed our modern view of history decisively. “Photography is pretending to just giving you the facts, and in fact, by the choice of the facts, influencing how you understand the world” [Kirby 2007].[2] An extract turns out to be an overall view, a random moment an incident. And this applies even more so if images run through retouching, montage and collage – what is now primarily made possible and commonplace by digital photography and Photoshop techniques and likewise considered an art form, was in the 20^th century long seen as a political means of supposed truth mediation. Even today we are nowhere free from this kind of influence, which we attribute, however, to know at least theoretically about.

The time of the Mao era until the 1970s – retouching and propaganda

In 2003 in New York, 27 years after the Cultural Revolution and still unthinkable on home soil, Li Zhensheng ???, employed as photographer by the newspaper Heilongjiang Daily in Harbin, has released hidden pictures he had taken from the mid-1960s until the early 1980s in his documentary photo book Red-Color News Soldier. “History is indeed Li Zhensheng’s paramount concern and this book’s main purpose: to remember and revisit those haunting and tragic events that were the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution” [Pledge 2003, p. 8].[3]

The Mao era is known for its constant use of propaganda for mass mobilization campaigns, to design policy models, as an ideological screen, to make public proclamation and actions to be undertaken, to control the education system and much more. Propaganda can be called the engine of the Mao era. The origins of the propaganda system of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) lead back to Yan’an, the destination of the legendary Long March in 1935 and headquarter of the CCP until 1948. Mao Zedong’s talks on literature and arts on February 1^st, 1942 led to the Yan’an Rectification Movement (Yan’an Zhengfeng yundong ??????) and gave propaganda its key political function.

During the whole reign of Mao Zedong “pictures (of him) were preferably published on or in water, only towards the end replaced by photos with a bright sun” [Spence / Chin 1996, p. 160].[4] Systematic retouching, the ‘removal’ of people from pictures who had become unpopular, was a common method. For example on a picture from 1958, Mao sets free the Ming Tombs, to demonstrate the hard work, together with the masses and with the former party secretary of Beijing, Peng Zhen??. After his dismissal in 1966, Peng was retouched from the photo [ebd., p. 186]. Another tactic is the deprivation of images, most evident on “famine and feast: the catastrophic food situation in rural areas during 1959 and 1962 was kept secret not only from abroad but also against the majority of their own people” [ebd., pp.190f]. Instead, the appearances are kept and images of a happy nation are spread continuously – though the leading elite feasting is also not presented to the emaciated people. Relevant works on this subject are available.[5]

After Mao – art and propaganda

Officially, it was under Mao to promote the revolution and under Deng Xiaoping to disseminate the reform program. Unofficially, but only after Mao, the first photography communities and clubs appeared in Beijing at the end of the 1970s, having emerged from a group of amateur photographers who photographed the protests of 1976 on the occasion of the death of Zhou Enlai.[6] As part of the generally expanding New Wave Movement (Xin Langchao yundong ?????) in fine arts in the 1980s arose a new wave of enthusiasm for photography, and for the first time for photography as a true art form – but this was abruptly put back in place in 1989. After the Tian’anmen massacre, one either photographed again for official release of the copyright to the State or not at all. However, there are several Chinese photographers who did photograph during the demonstrations and the subsequent massacre at Tian’anmen Square of which many have never shown their pictures. A small selection is offered in the already quoted volume by Spence and Chin.[7]

While artists of any discipline began to absorb Western material in the 1980s and moved to the underground in the 1990s because of the pressure from above, documentary photographers were almost exclusively self-absorbed far into the 1990s. They shot mostly black and white, with themes from the hinterland, which seemed oppressive and depressive. On the outside was the claim of self-discovery, “We are artists!,” inside there was unsureness in search of a unique form language, which had to be reinvented especially in their particular discipline. In addition, photography was used as a supplement and also for documentation of experimental performance and conceptual art in the artist’s suburb of Beijing called East Village, founded in 1993. 1996 Rong Rong ??, co-founded New Photo, the first Chinese journal of conceptual photography.[8] As well as in visual arts it was about shocking and finally screaming out, with methods and themes now depraved to clichés (nudity, foul language, faeces or dead embryos). Many of the few artist-documentary photographers were very successful, particularly in the West. Three very different personalities are Ling Fei ??[9], Mao ? alias Lü Nan ??[10] and Xing Danwen ???[11].

The 2000s – first exhibitions and approaches

The exhibition Humanism China: Contemporary Record of Photography (Zhongguo Renben: Jishi zai Dangdai ????——?????) in 2003 at Guangdong Museum of Art resembled a new turning point for China’s documentary photography and photojournalism. On this first large event, leading into a worldwide traveling exhibition, 250 Chinese documentary photographers presented their works of the past fifty years. As a prominent figure Lu Guang ?? shall be mentioned exemplarily here. As late as the 1990s, Lu had earned his living with wedding photos and was only occasionally able to finance one of his sporadic reports. He became known in 2004 as a winner in World Press Photo with the first prize in the category ‘Contemporary Issues’ and his pictures of an AIDS village in Henan province. With the encouragement from abroad, Chinese health authorities interestingly became aware of him and started working with him rather than covering up the events as regularly in cases of controversial issues. Lu Guang received several prestigious awards for the report (e.g. the Eugene Smith Award). His new big issues are environmental reports, and though he is struggling with authorities every once in a while, it will be interesting to see how his influence carries on to the local and national authorities.

Photojournalism is still a new medium in China. The number of exhibitions in the field of documentary photography, but also in fine arts photography increased since 2006, this medium was finally regarded as a serious possibility of expression in China, and participation in competitions of the photographers for photo journalists is rising. Thus, we find the traveling exhibition Between Past and Future – New Photography and Video from China and the Stuttgart Festival 2008 Photography from China 1934-2008 in the West, China itself created photo galleries such as Paris-Beijing in 798 art district and Three Shadows Photography Art Centre in Caochangdi.

Network of Chinese photographers

That hardly a Chinese photojournalist and documentary photographer has his own website and that there are also only few Chinese photo agencies are possible reasons why there is no extensive network in China for documentary photographers, and that they are primarily on their own. There are apart from News no platforms, no scenes, no places as in other artistic disciplines, where the participants could exchange their ideas. Many documentary photographers do not even know each other. After all, in China there are some photography festivals now, the oldest is the Pingyao International Photography Festival (Pingyao Guoji Sheying Dazhan ????????), co-founded in 2001 by Alain Jullien. Since 2005 there is the South China Lianzhou International Photo Festival (Lianzhou Guoji Sheying Nianzhan ????????), also raised by Jullien. For the first time in April 2010, the Caochangdi Photospring (Caochangdi Sheyingji ??????) was held under the direction of Bérénice Angremy, Rong Rong and inri, which was pursued with great interest – and might have its last run this spring because of financial difficulties.

On the other hand, there are again the developments of the decelerating, traditional photographers association and the veterans of the news agency Xinhua who do not let anyone close. As in other disciplines, the inclusion of artists in the association of their profession has traditionally been the only funding option. However, the boundaries between amateur and professional photography, as well as between photojournalism on the one and art photography on the other hand, are getting more and more permeable.

Independent photographers and commerce

The debate is old and belongs probably mainly to the 20^th century, probably even more to the West: Is art allowed to be sold? Or should art be created solely for its beauty, its aesthetics, which is in no way to be associated with value? Avant-garde as a denial of commerce. Even if the relevant positions have moved closer together over time, as far as this division exists, it is carried on in photography even more than in other art forms.

Documentary photographers are either depending on orders and exhibitions, or on a second job. This is also due to the state funding opportunities that are largely available in Europe but missing in China. The only support is given through the associations in China, in which the artist then are no longer free, but incorporated into the system, such as contract photographers for China Daily Youth (Zhongguo Qingnianbao ?????) or for the official news agency Xinhua. This has nothing to do with independence, so the artists have to find their own ways – and this path often leads to advertising.

Staged documentary photography

‘Staged photography’ has long established itself as a discipline, since a few years a form also emerged that could be named ‘staged documentary photography’. Does reality no longer provide enough material? “In many ways, these images are in their aesthetic sense truer than the images that just pretend as if they were true. The highest truth lays in the purest fantasy,” writes Klaus Honnef on the works of staged photography by Sinje Dillenkofer.[12] From advertising photography, which arranges its images with a similar amount of effort and who highly estimate the artificial production, staged photography and even more in their explanatory power staged documentary photography differ especially through their volitional subjectivity.

Staged documentary photography is as a mixture of fiction and reality a new genre that prevails slowly and in which for example Yang Yi ?? is a true master. The fiction in the pictures is very obvious and obviously intended. The emergence of this genre must also be understood as a new attitude towards history, which is more and more read as an interplay between truth and fiction. The personal sense of the present is distributed to an own historiography through subjectivity. In the case of China one may ask whether staged photography might be a possible escape from the censored reality. But the credo still often remains that photojournalism is exclusively committed to mapping reality, that nothing subjective should be included in the process. This claim was never true, because images are always a snapshot in a fraction of a second. There is nothing more subjective than photos, in which so much is imputed, focused, exposed, and staged. Due to the changes brought by digital photography and even more so by image processing, new colours for example were generated, which did not even exist before – a new world is being formed. Staged documentary photography is another chance to open the viewer’s eyes to the environment he lives in, and at the same time to reflect reality, to change it or even to create it.

reading

sleeping

a couple leave the house

Sparrows

swarm the alley

with their twitter

up to the bus stop

by the tree – swarmed

by tweet in tweet

On the cheek

spot on a beauty spot

the man

lands a kiss

To hide a show of tears

the woman

suddenly turns her head

blots out the blackening tears

off her cheeks

and turns back

to find no more sparrows

on the branches

by Ali Abdolrezaei

trans. Abol Froushan

Ali Abdolrezaei’s poetry shows that the contemporary art of Iran has been hugely influenced by the traumatic historic events of the last three decades and that these events have affected millions of Iranians in one way or another. Abdolrezaei is young and represents the aesthetics and voice of a new, multi-faceted generation of Iranians and their cultural chasm with the past in the face of a repressive political regime. Abdolrezaei gained reputation as a poet, speaking in the voice of his time, in the early 1990s and received wide critical attention. His poetry tackles difficult themes with a mastery of craft. Ali Abdolrezaei’s poems are translated into many languages such as English , French ,German , Spanish , Dutch ,Swedish ,Finnish ,Turkish, Portuguese ,Urdu , Croatian and Arabic.

Romania is currently one of the lowest ranking countries in the EU for film consumption, with less than 75 cinemas in the whole country, most of which are based in the main cities. Rural communities have very little access to sites of exhibition due to financial constraints and long distances to reach cinemas. Additionally, the few cinema theatres that are accessible are in poor physical condition, failing to meet basic hygiene or safety standards.

These issues have caused the important cultural activity of cinema-going to become an unaffordable luxury and so falls low in the list of priorities of rural residents. Free Reel Romania is based on the belief that there is an unmet opportunity in rural Romania to use cinema as a powerful tool for education and communication, empowering communities and providing a platform for the discussion of important social issues facing them, while also giving individuals a voice in the wider world through film production activities.

Free Reel Romania was presented in late March at the NexT International Film Festival (www.nextfilmfestival.ro) and will be officially launched at the Transylvania International Film Festival in June (www.tiff.ro). The project will see an estimated twenty film screenings take place across the country that benefit whole communities, each followed by a post- screening Q&A session with filmmakers involved in the production of the films. In addition 5 four-day filmmaking workshops will be conducted with youth from the communities. Short films produced in the workshops will be screened to the local community and toured around Romania as part of the mobile cinema’s touring programme, as well as being showcased in special screenings at TIFF, NexT, Open City (www.opencitylondon.com), Astra (www.astrafilm.ro), One World (www.oneworld.ro) and other well-established film festivals in Romania and the UK throughout 2012 and 2013. Workshop participants will also have the opportunity to present their films and take part in a post-screening Q&A session with audiences at such events.

The project will offer the most promising workshop participant a short scholarship at Brighton Film School Central, an established centre for film production training in the UK.

It is hoped that Free Reel Romania will be an annual project, able to return to participating communities as well as extending the geographic scope to others in the years to come. Free Reel Mobile Cinema is very much envisioned as a versatile and scalable project, able to visit a diverse range of countries and regions, across Eastern Europe and internationally, that have reduced access to cultural activities, and offer a variety of tailored film screening and making programmes.

In order to fulfill the great potential for this initiative we would very much welcome any and all donations to aid in our running costs or offers of sponsorship or collaborative partnerships. For more information please contact:

Yoram Allon: Executive Director, Cinephilia Services Ltd yoram@cinephilia.co.uk Jodie Taylor: Project Manager, Free Reel Mobile Cinema Jodie@freereel.org

Free Reel Romania is run in partnership with several well-established Romanian NGOs including Komunitas, Art We and CREATIV, and in collaboration with the NexT International Film Festival in Bucharest and the Transylvania International Film Festival in Cluj, while having as its programming partners Astra Documentary Festival in Sibiu, One World Human Rights Film Festival in Bucharest and Open City London Documentary Festival in the UK.

I am a dog

“I planned to read the poem, and I had thought that maybe it would make some in the audience  cry.” That was what Betty Abah said as an introduction to one of the poems she read at the International Institute of Journalism where she was the Guest Writer of Abuja Writers’ Forum, AWF. She didn’t need to say it loud on that occasion. And that is because anyone who reads the volumes of work of this well-travelled, and highly decorated journalist who was formerly on the stables of Newswatch and TELL magazines would not but feel what she meant, and shed tears for the downtrodden, the voiceless that were majorly the focus of her poems. But then the emphasis once again was more on how effectively she had utilized her genre to convey to the society many an inhuman condition. She used literature to serve a useful and known purpose on that score, and of some of her works, a participant had said, “You score a big blow for women.”  That was just one subject in Abah’s work that could make a reader shed tears for the human condition especially in Nigeria. It is because she wrote what she feels, and captured how others feel too.

The various subjects in her three volumes of poetry collection resonate with her readers, and one reason is because there is this delicious, down-to-earth touch to her writing. It made some in her audience ask why she writes the way she does, and if she has preference for any specific style of poetry writing. “I don’t have any particular style. I write the way I am inspired,” she said. And she got inspired by the things she sees and what she dreams. Incomprehensible God! is one outcome of such. And there is Peace. Both are in the collection titled, Sound of Broken Chain. That title, also the title of one the poems in the same book cannot be detached from her strong belief in the possibility of a man undergoing profound changes. “When a man who drinks too much alcohol, or that is mad is changed, chain is broken.” One could see the change that he is no longer mad; “it is like a proof, the sound of a broken chain,” she explained. That turn around in the life of any human being she believes so much in. Such is enough to make anyone cry because of the relief inherent in the experience, and her religious background is one reason. “My writing is my expression of my being, so you cannot remove religion from me,” she stated while responding to a question on why she takes on her kind of subjects.

One of her other poetry collection is Pending Thoughts. And there is her third  collection, Go Tell The King. Some of the poems she read from this are When I Die; Surviving Nigeria; Crude Women; Dem Go Say I Be Women, and A Certain Day. The last was what the poet specifically thought might make anyone cry, and no less so the other titles, too. A Certain Day was about one of the plane crashes in the country. The author covered the event as a journalist. And there was a man whose body would not be found; relatives of other victims collected bodies from the site of the crash, and carried out burial ceremonies, but not his. His people came and collect soil. They wanted something to bury. The journalist saw this and thought of the child of the deceased. What thought would a child have of a father that was dead but whose body never confirmed it. So she wrote. And what she penned was less about the effect of the ineptitude displayed in high places in this clime that led to loss of lives in plane crashes, than the thoughts in the head of a child about his late father:  “…I dreamt that last night/playing tennis with good, laughing Daddy/ I had grown a big, big boy/ and Dad was in shorts and all/ I said Daddy, are you home at last? He smiled and then ran as fast and fast away/ I ran after, calling Daddy come back!..”

Women are not left out of Abah’s writing, as well as the issue of environmental degradation. How she conveyed the condition of women in her poems would draw sympathy, and the devastation in the Niger Delta region of the country would draw tears. As for the environmentalist part of her, the author had even boasted to an associate of hers when she was on her way to the reading in Abuja that she would use the occasion to carry on the struggle against the degradation of the earth. And that some of her poems did do. Some call her a feminist because of the course she had deployed her genre to pursue. “But you don’t need to be a feminist to know there is so much oppression going on.” She recalled how women in some parts of South-South would hold umbrella and stand outside the Town Hall during a general town meeting, while what men and youth discuss within the hall is passed to them from mouth to mount. They stay outside because women cannot be part of the decision making, and they  need umbrella to shield off the element. Youth means young males, and never females, so when oil companies ‘settle’ communities, women are treated as if they don’t exist, Abah informed her audience.

J.P Clark is the author’s favourite poet, and she reads Maya Angelou’s work a lot. And Abah is so passionate about her writing that she writes only what she feels strongly about. Someone once asked her to write poems on some specific issues for a pay, but she declined because it is not her mode of putting pen to paper. It must be a sign of how serious she takes her work, how passionate she feels about the subjects she takes on. In all, she fights for a cause with her writing. It’s one other thing, as expected of  literature, that Abah’s writing does so well in her three collections.

Several other artists expressed themselves under the watchful direction of the Master of Ceremony, Seun Badejo. Their presentations were a part of extra treats of the day. Kamal Balogun, a member of AWF, performed a poem in Igala language to everyone’s delight. What his watchers missed in language they got in the actions that conveyed the message. Tokunbo Edwards played on his guitar music that some said “tended towards ‘rock,’” and to satisfactory applause from the audience. And Chime Emembo showed paintings that he themed, Christian religious art. He developed the theme based on his religious conviction, and a particular painting in his collection that had Jesus drawing a man out of water was titled, The Saviour.  Lami Yakubu’s short story, The Stillborn, was received with enthusiasm and her crisp sentences were commended by the 2008 NLNG Literature Prize nominee, Ozioma Izuora, as something that she, as a lawyer, particularly liked. Chido Onumah, a banker, read two poems with the titles: The Almanjiri, and Epitaph on the Plateau, which reflected the on-going violence in that part of the country. The Special Guest at the event was Alhaji Bilya Bala, a Director at People’ Media Limited, publishers of People’s Daily newspaper, who in his speech enjoined writers not to relent in carrying the flag of their art forward. Other notable personalities at the even include Chinyere Obi-Obasi, 2011 NLNG Literature Prize nominee; Oke Ikeogu, a published poet and many others.  The next AWF’s Guest Writer Session takes place on May 26.

Ajibade wrote from Abuja.