I stepped off the plane in Helsinki – airport code HEL – and found a restroom. Standing at a urinal, I heard birdsong piped through overhead speakers: odd, soothing, out of place. The train to downtown Helsinki departs from a giant, cool tunnel many meters below street level. The platform is nearly empty. Massive faux-tapestries…
Tag: travel
Missing Woman – Katie Hunter
In early October 2020, my partner Greg and I drove at sunrise to Zion National Park in southern Utah. On the way I swigged coffee and snapped photos of sandstone cliffs dip-dyed red by the sun. They dwarfed what I’d imagined while planning our pandemic-adapted vacation – a national park tour via road trip, starting…
ONE POEM – Mary Chydiriotis
a chant begins
a loud doleful wail
smear my body in holy oil
adorn my head with your crown of thorns
Failing to Eat a Local Delicacy – Michael O’Mahony
Lorighittas are a type of pasta made in one small village, Morgongiori, on a side of a mountain on the east of Sardinia. Only the women of this village, and only some of them, know how to make lorighittas. A lorighitta is effectively a woven pasta made from a dough of semolina and water. Each…
ONE POEM – Alexandra Corrin-Tachibana
Hamamatsu: home of unagi pie –– a biscuit made of eel.
Iwakuni: bridge of Samurai –– beer with strangers under blossom.
Pero’s Promise – Tamara Lazaroff
At the village bus stand, with my packed bags, I’m crying my eyes out as I kiss the faces of the row of relatives—Uncle Mitko, Beti, Verka, Tanja, Mirka, even Baba Slobodanka who Branko has carried on his back. Others, too. They’ve all come to say goodbye before I go back home to Australia. And…
ONE POEM – Ian C. Smith
For those who forego the languor of home ground, that lethal rapine of routine, the most compelling sound of the travelling life might be a ferry’s foghorn throughout the night
TWO POEMS – Ella Cunningham
Image: Edward Hopper, Railroad Sunset (1929) Ella Cunningham graduated from University of Birmingham last year, having studied English with Creative writing and specialising in poetry in her final year. Her dissertation focused on making love poetry more accessible and in-line with the digital age, along with attempting to normalise and de-sensationalise LGBTQ relationships in love…
SHORT STORY – John Herbert
John Herbert is an English teacher from Brighton, UK, holds a PhD in modernist fiction from the University of Birmingham, and is an alumnus of New Writing South’s Creative Writing Programme. He was Highly Commended for the 2017 Brighton Prize for short fiction and will appear in their anthology this year. In 2018 his work has also…
ICELANDIC PHOTOGRAPHY – Saman Izadyar
Saman Izadyar is a Psychology graduate from Cardiff University. He likes to think of himself as an amateur photographer and writer, with a huge passion for music and art (in particular video games). He formerly edited for Quench magazine and sporadically writes posts on his blog at www.MisanthropicPhilanthropy.com. These photographs by Saman also appear in the inaugural…
Porridge 