The Halt

Fever & fugue: poems, prose, & field recordings by Brian Lewis (@longbarrowpress). 'East Wind' (2015) and 'White Thorns' (2017) out now from @GordianProjects.

[The Halt @HaltThe]

An attempt at a 'cartographic ekphrasis' of Frank Auerbach's 'Maples Demolition, Euston Road', written and presented in July 2018, and shared in the wake of the painter's death. RIP Frank Auerbach, and thank you.

https://t.co/z5fwX1HN0E

[The Halt @HaltThe]

As part of @SmallPublishers 2024, and in a late change to the advertised programme, I'll be reading in The Green Room (at the back of the Conway Hall, via the stage) at 3.30pm today.

Full listings for the Fair's readings and talks today and Saturday: https://t.co/B95fNzJwAk

[The Halt @HaltThe]

As part of @SmallPublishers 2024, and in a late change to the advertised programme, I'll be reading in The Green Room (at the rear of the Conway Hall) at 3.30pm on Friday.

Full listings for the Fair's readings and talks on Friday and Saturday: https://t.co/B95fNzJwAk

[The Halt @HaltThe]

"I thought of how, as a child, I’d used pylons to calculate distance and time, and how they seemed to anchor space. The turbines resisted this. How unmeasurable they seemed, in a nightscape with few other visual referents."

'Landscapes of Power'
https://t.co/vzxHM1oqFL

[The Halt @HaltThe]

"A red admiral, the only colour on the bridleway, the only colour in my mind. To step out of your own path, for a moment, to see yourself as a point on a line."

A walk from West Kennet: seventy miles, thirty-five hours, four counties, two long barrows.
https://t.co/hsfPHewj9v

[The Halt @HaltThe]

"I thought of how, as a child, I’d used pylons to calculate distance and time, and how they seemed to anchor space. The turbines resisted this. How unmeasurable they seemed, in a nightscape with few other visual referents."

'Landscapes of Power'
https://t.co/vzxHM1oqFL

[The Halt @HaltThe]

"A pylon was a unit of length. It was a means of calculating distance and time. The legs of the towers were callipers that pivoted through the landscape."

'Landscapes of Power': a conversation between photographer Martyn J Bull and Brian Lewis.
https://t.co/vzxHM1oqFL

[The Halt @HaltThe]

"A red admiral, the only colour on the bridleway, the only colour in my mind. To step out of your own path, for a moment, to see yourself as a point on a line."

A walk from West Kennet: seventy miles, thirty-five hours, four counties, two long barrows.
https://t.co/hsfPHewj9v

[The Halt @HaltThe]

"The light holds its shape. It's an old shape. Old as the oolites. Solid as the sarsens. It has minutes before the sun's arc, or a passing cloud, peels it away."

'Slow Networks': a walk from West Kennet to Princes Risborough.
https://t.co/hsfPHewj9v

[The Halt @HaltThe]

"I'm walking this route to piece together a landscape that I've known since childhood, intimately, discretely, fragmentarily."

"Slow Networks": seventy miles, thirty-five hours, four counties, two long barrows.
https://t.co/hsfPHewj9v

[The Halt @HaltThe]

The Perseids gone,
the blackberries almost gone,
seventeen years gone.

[The Halt @HaltThe]

"There are six concave octagonal stars set in the solid double doors, black on red, Pagoda Bank above the doors in black sans serif title case and, above the lintel, custom acrylic letters, raised and red, that spell out CHINESE FIREWORKS CO."

[Longbarrow Press @LongbarrowPress]

'We knew that this wasn’t the whole story, the only story, the gaps told a different tale. There was no way to complete a stamp album. It was an atlas of cancellations.'

Longbarrow 2021 highlights #10: 'Last Collection' by Brian Lewis
https://t.co/a8XecHvErJ

[The Halt @HaltThe]

"The embankment winds through a slow south-east turn, the minutes pass, I fix on a little blackstone spit and a small iron cross. The cross sinks into bramble, it is almost all that remains of a field boundary. I can’t make anything of this. I am further and further behind. "

[The Halt @HaltThe]

"I lose patience with the scenery and consider my boots, they are 14 years old, they are not good boots. The seams are cracked. The grips have worn down. The eyelets press into the insteps. A cloud-shadow settles on the drainage ditch and extinguishes the light on the water."

[The Halt @HaltThe]

"A short sandy beach, not quite a bay, fills a dip in the foreshore. The line of the bank has straightened a little, I follow Essex less and less, the land falls away behind Canvey. Ahead of me a fence and gate tie the drainage ditch to the tidemarks."

[The Halt @HaltThe]

"80, 79. There are four small squares marked in outline, marked as ruins, just below West Point. I look to my right, to where they should be, and count seven concrete sheds, north to south, one row of three, two rows of two, overgrown and unroofed."

[The Halt @HaltThe]

"A low frequency that I can’t match to the image. I reach the headland and take out the map. West Point. It is marked on the sheet but not on the ground. In the next square the axes meet, northings and eastings, blue on blue, 80, 81, 81, 80."

[The Halt @HaltThe]

"A thin white crest scrolls back from the tidal flats. Cargo on the water, I see the containers and their colours before I see the ship. It is trying to leave the estuary, is it port or starboard on the right, if asked I would answer starboard, I couldn’t answer why."