Poetry – martin barnabus noutch.com

Book of Legends

Online chat has unearthed another open-world gamebook project that launched in 2023, but seems to have hidden beneath the radar for a little while. Book of Legends: The Eternal Empire is the Prologue Volume (that’s book 0 in a projected 10-book series) by Steven W Huggins.

Let’s not deny that a 10-book series is an ambitious undertaking – yet the 200-passage sample has already impressed me. It has a self-contained, explorable region that gives a great introduction to a world of fantastical-extended-Roman-empire that I find pretty original, while also feeling reminiscent of the Sorcery books. A colossal amount of work has gone into preparing the ground for a big series – there are around 50 pages of rules, mechanics and introduction in a 152-page printed copy – and the attention to detail is convincing. Huggins has also used a variety of mechanics – codewords, tickboxes and time-counters – to create an environment that responds and changes as you explores it – which is where the reminiscence to The Seven Serpents particularly comes in.

Online the author talks of being deep into the first volume – and veterans know that when publishing a series, a gamebook author should really be using a formula like (estimated time of writing) x 2 + 2 years. But I think this is one that I will be following…

Speaking of open-world series, Dave Morris is talking of completing the Vulcanverse saga… I’ve been working today on a long series of articles on How to Write an Open-World Gamebook (Series) [link coming when completed!] since they’ve been requested plenty of times, and I haven’t even ventured into the Vulcanverse, let alone mapped them! Book of Legends 0, on the other hand, has been a nice little mapping project.

December 24February 11

Christmas Eve by the river

The days are short, the light is low,

It bounces on the water like a skipped stone.

Ripples in the gravel become waves on a sea,

Casting shadows in lines, semi-regularly.

Reeds hang o’er the river, wheaten gold,

The mud gleams and shimmers and doubles each gull

Which waits while the tide returns and the sun struggles up

To a low zenith.

This quiet eve of Christmas is a short day

And a little work goes a long way.

Warm in the sun but cold on the breath,

The air catches clouds in mysteriousness,

Holding them still, for a moment, till they disappate,

And I, like the gulls, reflect and wait.

September 30

A Sort of Magic in Tintagel

Dolphin clocks,
Magic rocks,
Buy them all in Tintagel.
Oe’r your hearth, a
Bust of Arthur
You can buy it here as well.
Cornish ice cream,
What a nice dream,
Can you feel the aura here?
Local bread,
Leave well fed
There’s even magic in the beer.
Someone, sometime cast a spell,
To empty brain and purse as well,
Beware th’enchantment, the gift-shop bell
Should you visit Tintagel.

I haven’t been to Tintagel since 2014, but I enjoyed it when I did. Visited previously c. 2006 and I think that was when the first couplet of this silly little leonine verse got into my head. Now I have used it and posted it in the wild – on googlemaps. There’s not enough feral poetry out there, is there?

September 27October 12

150 Backers!

The 150th Backer of Steam Highwayman is Mr Jared Foley. In honour of his participation, I have composed this short clerihew:

Jared Foley
Made his decisions carefully, not, whatever they said, slowly.
His intentions were creative
His manner thoughtful and certainly contemplative.

Thanks Jared! We met and made friends at the Crossness Engines Steampunk Convivial on Saturday, when I also had the honour of meeting Mrs Marian Foley. I’m very pleased to be able to offer a little something in return. He is the esteemed Chief Buccaneer of the London Steampunk and Dieselpunk Society as well as a patron of the arts.

[Edit 12.10.17 – Unfortunately I was forced to remove the handsome photograph of Mr Foley: for some reason it had become a spam-bait, attracting around 500 spam comments over 3 days, largely from bots wanting to sell me medication or discuss the Prince of Persia. If anyone can enlighten me on this, please comment – but be sure to write something that indicates you’re real.]

April 14

Skelwith Force

The torn polygonal scraps of slate that line

Brathay’s bed above the force

Are dull when plucked, laid out and dry, but shine

Under the crag-stream’s course.

The whole broad dale at Elter Water’s strewn

With spring’s flood-leavings

And the upturned ash and birch-tree ruin

Tell of unseen heavings.

Out of the hill came the water, stripping the stone,

And lushing up the dale,

Around the ice-old mounds, the under-bone

Of the sleeper of a forgotten tale.

The soft and hard are side by side and felt

By every walker strolling down to see

The water turn to steam,

The clear become opaque,

The straight begin to bend,

The sure become unsure,

At Skelwith Force, where glaciations melt

And obstacles sudden slip free.

November 30

This Morning’s Poem

This mist on the Woolwich reach
And the glowing smoke of the clipper’s exhaust
Lie on the silver-silted wildfowl beach
Where every cold-shanked creature
From the dipper to the gull to the unemployed teacher
Treads in the silence the morning has enforced.

Silence in the world, frosted, stilled
But a spirit cry of sorrow melts inward ice.
I forgot. Meeting needs has filled
My day and been the building
I’ve been both brick-laying and gilding.
A melody makes me think twice.

It was a new song with a very old thought:
How far did they travel to give their treasure?
How many times wondered, how far the rest they sought?
And continued, purposed, refreshed with a water
Convincing star-seekers the way was getting shorter
And at last, in making a present, take pleasure.

You changed the reason that I should live
From managing to celebrating, from ‘enough’
To so much that I must learn to give
More frequently, more deeply, just to deliver
Others’ blessings, then, with a shiver,
Discover a smooth way that was rough.

I don’t yet do justice to the purpose you bring:
The world changed when you showed us real aid.
Guaranteed that all we do in honour should sing
With inner music, joy appear surprise-springing
Difficult days be the ones bells keep ringing
And I grasp it for a moment, weep, then act unafraid.

I was teaching a GCSE English Literature student about different sorts of rhyme yesterday, thinking about Browning and the Victorians – wanted to push myself to something a little more challenging.

The subject wanders from my window to the music I was listening to last night, my typical preoccupations with provision and purpose, and a very poor attempt to capture some of the joy I felt this morning, remembering that it is all new, that the story of Christmas is definitive, powerful, and that Jesus is the the point. It was as though I had forgotten for a while. Sorry, Lord.

October 18

Wagamama Ramen Quatrain

I visit Wagamamas for a bowl of ramen noodles,

Recuperate, read a book, sit and draw some doodles.

The portions are so generous, the broth full of umami,

That any other option for a ramen would be barmy.

November 15

Long Live the Poetry of Geology!

Yesterday’s review is now live on the London Grip.

Two poets I’ve discovered from the anthology:

Jonathan Davidson, whose ‘William Smith’s Poem’ was one of my favourites;

Maura Dooley, whose ‘Treasure Island’ begins the collection with a nostalgia-tweaking love-of-my-land reflection on the purposes of poetry and geology – and why not all human pursuits? Aren’t all our disciplines another ‘translation of Truth’s imagination’?

November 14

Reviewing in Progress

This morning I’ve been enjoying re-reading and reviewing Map: Poems After William Smith’s Geological Map of 1815, edited by Michael McKimm.

I review for the London Grip, edited by my friend Mike Bartholemew-Biggs. I previously wrote about McKimm’s Fossil Sunshine and enjoyed that very much – but in the upcoming review I discuss how McKimm has shared his discovery of the geology’s rich seam of latent metaphor with other poets, and their diverse responses.

December 29December 4

Wine and Water

A glass of wine might slake the thirst

But water, sure to rest the soul

Runs freer, less in our control,

The next draught swifter than the first.

Yet still we have this drink to share

Through time, across a world made small,

I drink with poets, saints and all

Distracted, dreaming, trying to care.

Blood. It does not mix with oil.

Another source of cleanliness

To sluice the cuts that nonetheless

Are stinging, tinctured with the soil

Of all the everyday, and night,

The bringer of our rest or pains,

Should heal us as we sleep, but veins

Of running sorrow bleed us white.

So washing off all worry’s marks –

Cold splash of spring-fed water, or

A brassy jug of wine to pour

So rainbows shine in ringing arcs.