Mark Goodwin is a walker, balancer, climber, stroller ... and negotiator of places. He has a number of books and chapbooks with various English poetry houses, including Leafe Press, Longbarrow Press, and Shearsman Books. His chapbook Erodes On Air (described as a compressed mountain travelogue) is published in the U.S. by Middle Creek (Beulah, 2021). His latest chapbooks are: to ‘B’ nor as ‘tree’, with Intergraphia (Sheffield, October 2022); and Of Gone Fox, with The Hedgehog Poetry Press (Clevedon, April 2023). Mark lives with his partner on anarrowboat just north of Leicester, in the English Midlands
a sound-enhanced version of Clear Place
poetry, vocals & sound production: Mark Goodwin
original field-recording: Brian Lewis
other audio recording: Mark Goodwin
Clear Place ________________________________________________
The thickness of the body, far from rivalling that of the world, is on the contrary the sole means I have to go unto the heart of things, by making myself a world and by making them flesh. – Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Visible and the Invisible
To create is to bring to existence what was not here before, but in such a way that the result is fully reconciled with everything that is already here. – Dalibor Vesely, quoted by David Seamon in Life Takes Place
________________________________________________
it is not near
nor is it far
the little clearing in
the brambles on
the waste
ground at
our city’s edge is
that Leicester’s ( or
could it equally
be
Sydney’s )
sirens spiralling our
fears through air
hear
here
where
Earth’s sky sets
its edge
against this
clearing’s
ceiling
the bramble wall round &
the smashed glit
tering syll ables of glass
here lies
a word not
written nor
spoken a
word the shape of
a person as
trans
parent as the
sur
rounding
glass fragments
person not near nor far a
person supine &
still & un
seen
listen
how the bees ent
wine with
the bud
dleias’ scent and
that wai
ting vib
ration of
breathing here
is a
place of some
clear-as-light
person a
sleep
Scrubland, by Dominique Cameron, charcoal on paper.