These pictures were made within a one-mile radius of my home in the Old Meadows, Nottingham, during the Coronavirus pandemic of 2020. They are a meditation on the sense of isolation, stillness and anxiety of that period; a visual record of my local walks and time spent indoors throughout the lockdown. Within my mile there is densely built urban streets, nature reserves, the River Trent and Victoria Embankment. Nottingham Castle and St Mary’s Church in the historic Lace Market, mark the northern boundary of the area. Along the river to the East is The Hook nature reserve at Lady Bay, a former floodplain with diverse habitats such as mature hedgerow, meadow, pond, ditch and orchard.
As a way of connecting with other artists throughout the lockdowns, I invited musicians and writers to respond to an image of their choice from the series by composing a piece of music or poem. The collaboration helped me through those difficult times and gave me a creative outlet when the situation around the world looked bleak.
This website brings together the music, words and pictures that resulted from this collective effort, I hope you enjoy exploring it.
— David Severn
Cobbled humps,
uneven lumps!
Amid the Victorian rectangles and squares,
the manhole sits. The entrance to the hidden lairs.
Solitude stood in the lamplight,
is dwarfed by the imagined knowledge of dank darkness, only inches from the present plight.
In days of old many hurried feet,
walked enduringly along this lonely street.
Some have most certainly lifted the lid and climbed down the shaft, they definitely did!
To the unseen depths where memory slept.
by Johanna Petridis
Supporting Role
Couldn’t tell you how long it’s been
Feel as if time moves outside me
Only catch a brief impression
touching my surface
A breath of the wind…
Immortal/immeasurable/soft
Forever a moment of a single glance
Felt the presence of young, broken hearts
as they walk past, defeated
The cold of alcohol on lips
And that blanket of night, offering little
Bites of Winter
kissing passers by
Hands clutched, just to, inside pockets
Carrying their bodies around
to the same old places
Crisp dawn overs
Wrapped in clean paper
A trail traced in motion
along seams of the city
Track fingerprints
Cupping of stone around stories
Prop of your set
You play out your parts
by Ali Hazeldene
A Slight Way
o
i follow no
i no i no i
i follow
the railing-rattle down
the path on the edge of the empty park
but
no i no i no i
i don’t
go
go
go slight as a
twine of smoke
towards
the light
a bright
o
an o ( a no )
at the end of the way that’s
hollow
by Mark Goodwin
initial couplets
conjoining star-crossed lovers –
bark rifts easily
by Linda Ford
Response coming soon.
Respond to this image? Get in touch!
The Hook*
Each branch, an arm, below the branch, broad chest,
A kneecap’s burr, spread roots - splayed feet,
Each faery tree imprisoning its guest,
Man, from Old Wives tales, trapped in heartwood.
Here stands an Ash. What alien ails its surface?
Ivy? Bindweed? In tendrils, tracery of veins. Trunk
impersonating man, Farmer perhaps, striding
to market, refusing to offer ancient greeting,
or worse, Forester, marking trees for slaughter
leaving no coin for resident witches.
Axe Oak to raise The Oak Men’s ire,
Don’t chop Elder, ask the ‘Auld Gal’s’ leave,
Sick children languish by a fire,
Come pass them through split Ash’s frame.
Stands here, an Ash. Slack leaves like pilgrim’s-
ribbons. Bark holds a captive: Farmer or Forester?
such past enchantments can’t enthral us now …
Sliced trunks make window frame,
Beyond cut wood stands glass,
A room behind fogged panes
And in that room, a man.
Here stands our man, days locked,
life pausing on a screen and on his distanced walk
a weed-hooked Ash stretching near human fingers to
the sky.
*The Hook’s land across the river from Nottingham’s Colwick Park hosting an old Ash tree.
by Deborah Tyler-Bennett
This seems familiar...
Am I to enter, or to leave?
I have noticed (of late)
that some of these leaves
are also out
of place
And some greys
are the wrong greys.
What am I to enter into, or to leave from?
I am facing outwards
from the Carousel
and faraway edges
are folding Hospital Corners
inbound ...
...different shaped breaths, I can’t tend.
The Wild is unclipped
yawning
half awake.
by Ali Hazeldene
The Hawthorn Gathering*
Lining routes, ganged teenage boys, wrong-
foot the unwary. Do they shift at dusk,
six brother trees? Ballads sing spirited copses:
Ellum do grieve,
Oak he do hate,
Willow do walk,
If you travels late.
And Hawthorn?
Ruffled branches become harbingers,
rotten pork’s stench limns pure petals,
plague’s tang lives under flowers
tight packed as winding sheets.
Listen.
Dull breezes, secreted magpies, could explain chattering.
Six brothers uproot, shuffle closing
as travellers gingerly test tracks.
Recall old instructions –
Never take their bounty in at doors,
come May Day, harvest branches
to pack eves and church porches,
floral beer-foam warding off all witches.
Greet gathered brothers on the hawthorn path,
thank them, truly, for your year’s protection.
*The old rhyme (in italics) is quoted in many sources including Katherine Briggs A Dictionary of Fairies (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976), 159.
by Deborah Tyler-Bennett
Respond to this image? Get in touch!
Clean break
Bathroom tiles mouldy
with grief; scrubbed with spring, aching
memories and bleach.
by Bridie Squires
The stuff that gets done
to avoid the main schedule
still amazes me.
by Jenny Hibberd
Response coming soon.
Cat
A fleeting smudge on
the
neighbour's fence,
teetering between the
boundaries of
superstition,
witchcraft
and backyard
butchery.
A scruffy little panther,
black, but without
the quiet dignity of
night,
an imperfect dark,
like mould, scuff
marks,
and spilled flat cola.
Stubby half tail,
unapproachable
and matted,
eight lives down
he’s one part ghost
selfishly haunting
the impossible centre
of someone’s
whole world.
by Andrew Graves
Response coming soon.
Response coming soon.
Respond to this image? Get in touch!
Respond to this image? Get in touch!
poster child wanted
a promise of blank canvas
for muted billboard
by Linda Ford
Dear Robert,
I know you carved a path
sculpting a new vision of the working class.
Smoothed the rough edges, chiselled the face
emancipating the proletariat, through art.
You give us a bare-chested man scything wheat for the harvest
a graceful woman, gathering fruit, chicken pecking at her feet.
Working side by side.
I’ve got to be honest
she looks like she’s holding up the sky from falling in
as if she knows the future and sees the queues of hungry.
These days all we gather at harvest time is cans and dried goods
to drop at the collection point at our local supermarket.
Of course, you never saw that.
You died before the slow decline of farms into production lines.
But in Market Square, on the left-hand side
your Lion looks on, eyes wide open.
by Anne Holloway
Dear Robert,
I know you carved a path
sculpting a new vision of the working class.
Smoothed the rough edges, chiselled the face
emancipating the proletariat, through art.
You give us two proud working men, stripped to the waist,
lamp held high, tooled up for the shift.
Providers.
I’ve got to be honest
they look a bit more YMCA than COPD and white finger.
They are certainly exchanging a gaze of one sort or another.
I’d never mention that to the lads from Notts or Derby.
They’ve had their share of derision and attempts at emasculation.
Of course, you never saw that.
You died before the ‘Iron Lady’ really put the boot in.
But in Market Square, on the left-hand side
your Lion looks on, eyes wide open.
by Anne Holloway
Respond to this image? Get in touch!
Gestures
she
she wishes
she wishes to
she wishes to step
she wishes to step in
she wishes to step into
she wishes to step into the
she wishes step into the
space
he
he just
he just watches
he just watches as
he just watches as she
he just watches as she
shakes
he just watches as she shakes as
he just watches as she shakes as she
he just watches as she shakes as she
tries
by Mark Goodwin
Respond to this image? Get in touch!
Blind Seekers
There is a story here
or at least an ending.
The great and mighty
deserving of a statue
turn their backs on it
but the crow flies across
and the moon watches over
her sister planet.
Earth will survive
the dark speck of consciousness
lingering below,
although the speck itself
might think otherwise.
Good old human mind
a shadow in waiting
blind seeker of rare seers
why fathom anything
beyond its boundaries?
There is beauty as well.
There always was.
by Pascale Quigiver