Dreamcatcher Magazine

Tundra Gap

Author: Paul Sutherland
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-954501-55-6

Tundra Gap is an anthology of artwork, poems and creative fiction that expresses the unique beauty and nature of Whisby Nature Park near Lincoln. Four years in the making the final result is a beautiful 70 page perfect bound book that combines different perspectives of writing and visual art. Editor Paul Sutherland says of the artists and writers: "Their work becomes a metaphor for the task confronting us all: how to care for vulnerable, natural locations in such an informed loving way to make them accessible for everyone to explore and enjoy."

Available to buy now from Inpress Books

Angle from Above

Author: Stehpen Wade
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-954501-59-4

An Angle from Above by Wade, Stephen

Stephen Wade was born in Leeds and is a freelance writer specialising in crime history but he has also long been involved in the world of poetry in England. An Angle from Above is based on his writing residency at HMP Lincoln (2003-6).

'His imagination and feeling for the past is enormous, and his ability to get inside the skins of others impressive.' — Janet Walker in Envoi Magazine

'His work is personal, low tension and optimistic.' — Artscene

The endless monotony of ‘doing time’ is something truly known only to those who have experienced it. That said, prison authorities are keen to try and break that monotony, and indeed have targets on the number of hours that prisoners should spend on ‘purposeful activity’. Sadly, purposeful activity very often simply replaces one form of monotony with another. Whilst the days of sewing mailbags may be gone, prisoners continue to pack margarine, count nuts and bolts, and dismantle video cassettes for recycling. It’s far from challenging, and leads some prisoners to prefer staring at the walls of their cell than engaging in work.

Keeping prisoners occupied is only half of the challenge facing a prison system grappling with the cancer of overcrowding. The bigger test is engaging them in activity that stimulates the mind and encourages thought, reflections and creativity. The role of the arts in prison, and writing in prison in particular, is central to this.

Some say that prisons are microcosms of society. I disagree. Far from being a microcosm, a twenty-first century prison has become a repository for people that society doesn’t know what else to do with; warehouses for society’s problems. But they also contain a huge range of talent and ability. Witness the amazing artwork that is entered into the Koestler Awards scheme each year, or the designs for book covers used by the Forum on Prisoner Education, and this talent is easy to see. An Angle from Above is a further example of that raw talent that too often goes unrecognized.

An Angle from Above should be widely read and enjoyed: that is, after all, why it has been produced. But it should also serve as an example to other prisons, prisoners and prison managers of the value of prison writing and of ensuring that the talent in our prisons reaches further than the occasional display or performance inside the walls, and gets over the prison wall in a manner that would make Fletcher and his mates at HMP Slade proud.
Steve Taylor — Director, Forum on Prisoner Education

Available to buy now from Inpress Books

Picnic in the Park

Author: James Blake Robinson
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-954501-55-6

This work is for ages 5-10. "There are lots of animals you can meet, All of them searching for something to eat. Whatever the weather, if it's light or dark, There's always a picnic in the park." "Picnic in the Park" is a beautifully illustrated short story based on a walk around Whisby Nature Park, in Lincolnshire. Rhyming couplets are used throughout the book to bring humour to nature's food chain; "Beautiful butterflies and magnificent moths, Suck sticky nectar to soothe their coughs. Late at night bats wings beat, Midnight moths make a tasty treat." A children's trail based on "Picnic in the Park" is being created in Whisby Nature Park. This is James Blake Robinson's first publication.

Available to buy now from Amazon

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Author: Afifa Ematullah
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-9554570-3-6

Afifa Ematullah is part of a long tradition of mystic Sufi poets who seek to explore a love greater than that of mortal life, but yet reflect that human love in the adoration of the Higher Being. Alongside such luminaries as Rabia Basri, the great female Sufi poet and the now extremely popular Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi, Afifa Ematullah meditates on nature and the nature of love in poems that encompass tenderness, intensity, gentleness and resolve. A collection
that will repay re-reading a hundredfold.
Joolz Denby - Poet

These passionate poems, in a voice which has a purity and clarity, reminiscent of both Rumi and Mirabhai, take the reader on a journey which leaves the reader by the end breathless and illuminated.
Josephine Dickinson - Poet

The range of the poetry’s emotional and spiritual landscape is rendered instantly accessible through the sheer variety of treatments, leading to a wonderfully rich visual experience that complements the intensity of the poetry.
Mick Paine - Calligrapher