Byways: poems and stories on foot

by Cherry Potts (Editor)

Byways, an anthology of stories and poems from across the UK and elsewhere, exploring the urban shortcuts, well-trodden meanders, ancient pathways, hillside and field paths. The public and the secret ways that take us away from the crowds and out of our vehicles. Mainly in English but including a handful of poems in Welsh (with translation), join us off the beaten track.

Arachne Press has a track record (pun intended) of publishing what academics call psychogeography, but we call well-routed. We also have history with climate concern. We combine the two here, offering drama and solace from experiencing the world at the slow pace of a walk, whether the short cut to the chippy, or an all day hike in the hills.

with contributions from Adele Evershed, Amelia Foster, Angela Arnold, Annemarie Cooper, Annie Kissack, Attalea Rose, Cath Humphris, Des Mannay, Diana Powell, Eabhan Ní Shuileabháin, Em Gray, Gloria Heffernan, Gregory McGreevy, Gwyn Parry, Heather Lane, Helen Campbell, Jane McLaughlin, Jeff Phelps, Jonah Corren, Josie Levin, Judith Mikesch-McKenzie, Katie Harrison, Katie Margaret Hall, Kelly Davis, Laura Besley, Lisa Farrell, Lizzie Lovejoy, Mab Jones, Maddison Price, Marcus Smith, Michael Shann, Michelle Penn, Mitzi Dorton, Nicholas McGaughey, Phil Wood, Raymond Luczak, Rhys Owain Williams, Ros Woolner, Sara Louise Wheeler, Seth Crook, Simon Chandler, Sue Burge Sue Moules and Thea Smiley

90 pages, Paperback

Published March 20, 2024

About the author

Cherry Potts is a Londoner born and bred. She is the author of two collections of short stories: Mosaic of Air, and Tales Told Before Cockcrow: Fairytales for Adults; a photographic diary of a community opera The Blackheath Onegin, and has had several stories in anthologies. Her Lesbian Fantasy Epic, The Dowry Blade is out in February 2016 and she is currently working on her next collection, a science fiction novel, and a timeslip-young-adult kinda thing. She also runs workshops for writers exploring NLP (Neurolinguistic programming) approaches to language and characterisation and teaches Creative Writing at City University as a visting lecturer.In her spare time Cherry is the owner of Arachne Press, and (co)editor of London Lies, Lovers' Lies: Short Stories, Weird Lies, The Other Side of Sleep, Solstice Shorts and Stations: Short Stories Inspired by the Overground Line.

Reviews

[Ewan Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m a BIG fan of anthologies; the whirl of ideas is so exhilarating. Already, Byways has made itself one of my favourites. This is a collection of stories and poems inspired by informal paths. “We asked for rights of way that you can’t take a vehicle on,” writes editor Cherry Potts in the introduction, “alleys, snickets, ginnels, bridle paths, greenways, the high water line on a beach, mountain passes, desire paths, towpaths”. It’s a cracking concept. These are deeply personal private byways, full of mystery and memory. In ‘Mapped’, Helen Campbell captures perfectly the horror of such a path being discovered by official mapmakers. “And now they have captured it. / Counted its length. Imprisoning / its curves, shape, its very soul. / And next will be its naming”. These are poems and stories which arise from a very particular awareness. “They walk with you, the summer people,” Jane McLaughlin writes in ‘The Sweet Track’, “heard in the flit of a warbler, / the creak of a trodden rush, / seen in the ripple of spring ditches / shining through birch twigs.” Much of the language, like the byways it describes, exists only in itself. “Gangs of weather-tantrum trees partner you / like whispers of the sketch-readily still; then storm- / whop you on into a bent-body scramble”, Angela Arnold writes in ‘Walking with All of It’. Sue Burge’s ‘Pilgrimage in Fourteen Sections 2.4 km’ is a glorious cascade of fragmentary descriptions, “I lie on the path / tang of dog pee / tangle / of goose-grass & violet”. But my indisputably favourite phrase in the collection is “soft-plastic play structures caked in decades-old, crusted toddler slobber,” from ‘Listen’ by Attalea Rose. That crusted toddler slobber is going to live with me for a long time. There are so many good things in this anthology. I loved Ros Woolner’s mischievous ‘Safety Notices’ in which she lists all the things she no longer does on her walks round the pond on November afternoons. “No, I keep my eyes on the yellow / birches and I stick to the path”, she ends miserably. Seth Crook’s ‘Eggbox Track’ is a wonderful fantasy(?) about eggs on sale by a farm gate and the money for them which is never collected. Diana Powell’s ‘Palimpsest’ is a triumph as it describes the creation of a path by unnumberable footsteps going back into prehistory. “Feet, boots, stamping up, down… hard down, pressing. Straightening the path as they go”. Then there’s Sara Louise Wheeler’s wonderfully descriptive ‘Dechrau’r Daith / The Path is Another Country’ which comes in both Welsh and English versions. Here, the small details take centre stage. “And then, on reaching Saltney, I see the sign / Welcome to Wales… it’s so small, / and attached to a piece of old, splintered wood,” she writes. “Ie, croeso i Gymru, yn wir!” So many gems. It’s unfair to choose a favourite among so many favourites in this wildly rich collection. But I’m going to anyway. Laura Besley’s ‘Worlds Apart’, a wonderfully simple little tale. It’ll break your heart.