Phase Two of The Seven Wonders, an ongoing series of collaborative works based on  spectacular landmarks from the Derbyshire Peak District, begins with a reimagining of Kinder Downfall, in which Fay Musselwhite’s poem ‘Phlegmatic’ is paired with a new painting by Paul Evans. You can view the painting and the poem here. The site also features the work that comprised Phase One of the project: drawings and paintings by Paul Evans accompanied by poems by James Caruth, Matthew Clegg, Mark Goodwin, Rob Hindle and Chris Jones. A new painting and a new poem will be posted on The Seven Wonders site every month from June 2012.

Among the contributors to Phase Two of The Seven Wonders will be Alistair Noon, whose poem ‘Hill with Bunker and Flak Tower’ (from the recent Longbarrow Press pamphlet Swamp Area) introduces a fascinating piece by Luke Bennett on the fate of Berlin’s ‘heap-parks and zoo-arks’. The sequence from which the poem is taken (‘Six Structures’) profiles several of Berlin’s notable man-made features, including the sculpture by Jonathan Borofsky (installed on the River Spree) that gives its name to the poem ‘The Molecule Man’. Listen to Noon reading this poem here; for his reading of ‘Hill with Bunker and Flak Tower’, please click here.

Noon’s ‘Top Five Strange Poetry Readings’ is among the recent additions to our Longbarrow Blog; also featured is Matthew Clegg‘s appreciation of the work of poet Josephine Dickinson. Finally, Clegg and Fay Musselwhite will read a selection of walking-themed poems at 7 Garden Street, Sheffield on Saturday 23rd June as part of the Occursus/plastiCities summer programme (6pm prompt start; admission free; further details and directions here). Clegg will be reading from Edgelands, Nobody Sonnets and other sequences; click here to listen to excerpts from Edgelands and some brief comments on the art of walking.