Walking Thru' Fire: Recent Episodes
Ian Gouge
Welcome to ‘Walking Thru’ Fire’. I’m Ian Gouge, writer and publisher, and this podcast is a showcase for my work.
This is a reading of my long poem, Crash.
The piece was performed as a dramatic monologue on the 10th June at the Ripon Theatre Festival in North Yorkshire.
The performance opens with a man rousing himself from sleep. He stretches, puts on his dressing gown and glasses. Then he notices various items on a table near his bed - a mug, a knitted poppy, a restaurant menu, a clock - before looking up to realise he has an audience before him.
He scans the audience, then begins speaking…
This episode contains the majority of the first chapter from my 2018 novel The Infinity of Mirrors.
I hope you like it.
"What he knew' is a short story taken from my collection, Degrees of Separation. I hope you like it.
"What he knew' is a short story taken from my collection, Degrees of Separation. I hope you like it.
This is an untitled piece I wrote when at the 2022 Swanwick Summer School. It emerged from two workshops, one on the short story and one on general fantasy. The amalgam is - I have always assumed - the beginning of something rather than a story in its own right.
It is set in a dystopian future and therefore has something of the sci-fi about it. Not one of my favourite genres, I hope I have handled the idea subtly enough to be in keeping with my usual style.
See what you think.
"Out of the Woods" is a short story taken from my collection, An Irregular Piece of Sky, published on 21st May, 2023. I hope you like it.
A short story about how a dream can distort your view of the world and loosen your grip on reality - especially in Hollywood.
"The Big Red Button" is a short story taken from my 2023 collection An Irregular Piece of Sky (published 21st May). I hope you like it.
Ever since he wrote his first story aged five - an illustrated tale about a boy’s adventures in space - Ian Gouge wanted to do nothing other than write. This was an ambition fulfilled merely in fits and starts over the years, and even then only in a minor way.
This changed at the turn of the twenty-first century when Ian - having by that time spent nearly thirty years working in Information Technology - landed contracts to write three non-fiction books focussing on IT strategy and management. It was an opportunity which proved he could string a few sentences together in a reasonably effective way, and so he began to take his writing a little more seriously.
Discovering the potential of Indie Publishing in 2012 (initially via Amazon Direct and then subsequently through Ingram Spark) proved the trigger which allowed the flood gates to open, and over the next few years Ian not only edited and published some historical work, but also embarked on something of a writing frenzy.
This frenzy unabated, by June 2023 Ian will have written and published eight novels, three novellas, three collections of short stories, nine volumes of poetry, and one further work of non-fiction - one based upon his ‘writing life’. These books have been published under his own ‘Coverstory books’ imprint, a vehicle he has used to help many others get into print too; the twenty volumes ‘Coverstory books’ has published in the last five years include collections of poetry and international anthologies of both poetry and prose. There have been around one hundred contributors.
The inspiration for Crash came from watching Ralph Fiennes’ stage performance of reading T.S.Eliot’s The Four Quartets. What began almost as word doodles and something vaguely nebulous soon gained form and shape, to finally coalesce to the dramatic poem Ian will read at the Ripon Theatre Festival in June. The end product is something entirely new and original for him. Over time, he hopes to add two more ‘acts’ to Crash, and then turn the trio into a single multi-voice stage play.
Ian now writes full-time, his ambition finally achieved!
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Ian runs two on-line poetry groups - Contextual and the Derby Stanza - is chair of Ripon Writers’ Group, a member of ‘Write-on Ripon’, Promoting Yorkshire Authors, and the North Yorkshire Stanza. He is also a creative writing mentor at retreats run by Writing Retreats UK.
His May 2023 publications are two novels, Once Significant Others and Tilt, a collection of sonnets called not the Sonnets (and based on Shakespeare’s Sonnets), and a short story collection - An Irregular Piece of Sky - which contains the 2022 Swanwick Summer School prize-winning ‘Park’n’Ride’. Crash will be published as a pamphlet in June 2023 to coincide with the Ripon Theatre Festival performance.
A selection of six Haiku, that almost throwaway short form 17-syllable Japanese poem which seems so fitting for our Instagram age.
In this podcast I am going to read an article entitled ‘What is Poetry for?’ Its a mediation on the meaning and value of poetry - which, if you wanted to, you could extend not only to all written forms but perhaps any creative endeavour.
I hope you like it.
In this podcast I am going to read the beginning from a work-in-progress which may end up as a novella or a novel. Or, indeed, a series of short stories. In any event, it’s fiction.
This opening piece is entitled 17 Alma Road. I hope you like it.
In this podcast I am going to read the final four sonnets from my collection, ‘Not the Sonnets’, which will be published later this year.
Given Shakespeare’s own sonnets are the major influence behind my collection, it seemed only right and proper to conclude it with more than a nod to the Bard. In each of these four poems I have adopted a somewhat slanted view of proceedings in four of the plays as seen by one of the major characters. They are, in order: the Friar, from Romeo & Juliet; Gloucester, in King Lear; Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream; and Macbeth in Macbeth.
I hope you like them.
In this podcast I am going to read an extract from my novel, The Opposite of Remembering.
This section is about 40% of the way through the novel. The main protagonist is Liam who has recently divorced from his wife Rachel and is now moving into rented accommodation. Katy is their daughter.
A slightly updated edition of the novel will be available from early February.
In this podcast I am going to read “An Irregular Piece of Sky”, a short story included in my new collection of the same name, which should be published later this year.
In this podcast I am going to read “Ursula”, a short story included in my new collection, “An Irregular Piece of Sky”, which should be published later this year.
One of my favourite things to do is to create people. Many of my stories are pen portraits of people placed in particular situations or with specific histories, occasionally told in the first person. “Ursula” is one such story.
As a male writer I think it important to try an adopt a female voice from time-to-time. Not only does this seem to me to be a true test of one’s skill, but it also is a way to demonstrate - or prove - that you understand people. Hopefully Ursula’s monologue does both of those things.
In this podcast I am going to read “Smoking in the Park”, a short story included in my new collection, “An Irregular Piece of Sky”, which should be published later this year.
In common with much of my fiction, the story concerns someone forced not only to look back on their past, but who is then challenged to confront it contemporaneously in a very real way. I have attempted to show how much uncertainty there is in attempting to reevaluate our histories, and to decide what something meant, or was worth. This uncertainty is multiplied many times over when the past we are confronting is emotional rather than factual…
In this podcast I am going to read “When It Happened”, a short story included in my collection “Secrets & Wisdom”.
The story represents something of an unusual departure for me. Almost sci-fi, it posits the possibility of a new and better future driven by - well, who can say? Perhaps it would be better for you to make up your own mind…
In this episode I read "The Waiting Room", the opening story in my collection Degrees of Separation.
I hope you like it.
In this short episode I read five sonnets taken from a collection on which I am currently working - and which will be published in 2023.
These sonnets (and others) were first read and published on my website earlier this year. You can still find them there.
I hope you like them.
I would like to read the opening of my short story “How Does It Start?”
The story is perhaps a little unusual in that ‘the action’ doesn’t start until the second section i.e. immediately following on from what I am about to read. This first element is part scene-setting and part philosophy. It is also - I believe - one of the most ‘poetic’ pieces of prose I have ever written. Indeed, it wouldn’t take too much effort to turn it into something that might pass as ‘a poem’.
“How Does It Start?” first appeared in print in my 2017 collection “Secrets & Wisdom”. I am currently revising the collection and a new edition will be available in November 2022.
I would like to read you the draft opening to my new novel (which will be my eighth and will probably be published in the second half of 2022). What you are about to hear represents a work-in-progress, but I feel the opening deserves an airing. The draft is currently out in the market seeking an Agent...
I have yet to settle on a title for the book. The original working title was ‘The Reunion’, but - though accurate in terms of subject - it feels a little too bland. I am currently wrestling with ‘Once Significant Others’ as an alternative - though to be honest, I suspect I may move on a little from that too.
In any event, I hope you like this extract.
In this podcast I am going to read “Welshman”, a short story included in my collection “Secrets & Wisdom”.
Perhaps the best job I ever had - and certainly the one I enjoyed the most - was working in a bookmakers during university vacation-time. These were in the days before computers and banks of tv screens; the odds were written up by hand on an enormous white board, continually changing throughout an afternoon (my favourite part of the job!), and all bets were settled manually.
The events in “Welshman” are entirely fictitious, at least in my experience - though I daresay that somewhere they are likely to be close to either truth or legend…
In many respects my 2020 collection, The Myths of Native Trees, is my most ‘complete’ volume of poetry to-date - even if it is not my latest.
After coming across a series of legends in relation to a number of native UK species of tree - some of which more folklore than anything else - I was taken with the idea of using some of these myths as the basis for a series of short poems. Soon I had a small copse of twelve poems.
In parallel, of course, I was writing other pieces, and when the ‘trees poems’ were complete found I had sufficient material overall to pull another volume together. It seemed only natural - no pun intended! - to make the trees the ‘heroes’ of this new collection, hence the title of the book and that the myths take centre stage.
In this podcast I will read three tree poems - Alder, Ash and Cherry - without further comment, and then four other pieces from the book.
It is not too melodramatic to admit that, in many respects, I had a very difficult childhood. The most tangible evidence of this is the fact that, by the time I went to University aged twenty, I had already lived in seventeen different places and had effectively been homeless three times. These days I would have undoubtedly been taken into care.
Although I had previously written the odd piece in relation to my pre-University history, I had never tackled those formative years in any concerted way. Then, at some point in 2020 - and without any specific trigger I can recall - I decided the time had come to do so; hence the idea for The Homelessness of a Child was born.
Initially I had considered autobiography as the logical route to unpack that chunk of my past, but soon settled on a collection of poetry as the most appropriate vehicle - partly because I already had a little material in that genre, and partly because I doubted who could possibly be interested in my life story.
The Homelessness of a Child contains eighteen poems which specifically relate to my experience growing up; the rest of the collection does not - though without doubt there will be echoes and reverberations throughout. How can there not be?
In this podcast I am going to read four of those autobiographical pieces plus three others selected from the remainder of the book.
This is my short story which won first prize in the 2022 Swanwick Summer School short story competition.
My second 2018 volume of poetry, After the Rehearsals, was entirely different to anything I had attempted before. Initially the collection wasn’t meant to be poetry at all but was in fact the beginnings of a novel.
I had written around thirty-four thousand words of the narrative and arrived at, what is for me, a critical juncture in the creation of a work of fiction i.e. that point at which I have to decide whether or not I believe in the project.
In this particular case, although it transpired that I had little faith in the novel, I still liked the story, and so I decided to see if I could create a sequence of prose poems to carry the narrative. Those thirty-four thousand words were soon edited in a somewhat radical fashion and, when the story was subsequently seen through to its conclusion, the end result was After the Rehearsals.
My intention was to create a cohesive story told in prose poem format, but with each element strong enough to stand alone. I hope I succeeded. In order to get the most from the book, it is, I’m sure, a volume of poetry which needs to be read from beginning to end as if it were a novel.
In this podcast I will read just three pieces from the book; one from early on, and two from later in the narrative.
The Myths of Native Trees
In many respects my 2020 collection, The Myths of Native Trees, is my most ‘complete’ volume of poetry to-date - even if it is not my latest.
After coming across a series of legends in relation to a number of native UK species of tree - some of which more folklore than anything else - I was taken with the idea of using some of these myths as the basis for a series of short poems. Soon I had a small copse of twelve poems.
In parallel, of course, I was writing other pieces, and when the ‘trees poems’ were complete found I had sufficient material overall to pull another volume together. It seemed only natural - no pun intended! - to make the trees the ‘heroes’ of this new collection, hence the title of the book and that the myths take centre stage.
In this podcast I will read three tree poems - Alder, Ash and Cherry - without further comment, and then four other pieces from the book.
The title of this podcast comes from a piece I wrote many years ago and which, in some ways, proved something of a touchstone for much of the poetry that has subsequently followed.
With some of its source in found poetry, the poem Walking Thru’ Fire represents a fusion of both the curated and the original, a blend of images loosely sewn together to form what is hopefully a cohesive - if impressionistic - whole.
Undoubtedly because of the nature of its construction, the piece has enjoyed multiple incarnations over the years as I found I was able not only to create abridged versions of the poem, but also to re-sequence sections of it and in doing so permit the ‘meaning’ to flex and morph accordingly.
What follows is the complete version of Walking Thru’ Fire as included in my first volume of poetry Collected Poems, 1979-2016.
Life weaves its magic of triumphs and disappointments everywhere, and often those burdened with more than their fair share of tragedy can feel lost and alone. Even in a quiet backwater like Maunston Quay people struggle to come to terms with their personal suffering and grief - yet Maunston Quay may offer the kind of second chances that gives hope to all.
"Once Significant Others" is my new novel, currently out for pre-publication reviews.
Comments thus far:
"The opening line ‘She hadn’t meant to die,’ opens up a world of liminal spaces, where past and present relationships co-exist. One character is the lynchpin, holding together a complex web of relationships. Six lives had converged in their youth during ‘the summer of ’84’. The death of one is the catalyst for a group of people, now in their fifties, to come back together and uncover some uncomfortable truths. The reader must decide whether or not this character is the heart and soul of the group or simply the puppet master. Here is a story that questions the whole idea of friendship and the notion that we can ever really know anyone, no matter how intimate the relationship or how much time passes in the making of it."
"A deeply engaging book, addressing pressing issues of ageing and memory. The characters are caught in an intricate dance of time. Every moment of dialogue and recollection is thoroughly believable. Past secrets explode into the present from a multitude of viewpoints."
"I find the premise, structure and writing of this novel intriguing, as is the character development. I especially love how the reader is invited to participate as a member."
Many years ago, whilst studying at University, I used to work in a bookmakers during the holidays. It was a wonderful, mind-broadening experience.
'Welshman' is a short story set in that environment. Although it is not a depiction of a specific event or specific individuals, it is the kind of scene that could quite easily be played out anywhere in the country.
The story is from my collection 'Secrets & Wisdom'.
In this podcast I am going to read “Downsizing”, a short story to be included in my collection “An Irregular Piece of Sky” which will be published later this year.
Sometimes short stories can surprise you, emerging not from specific ideas or experiences, but growing organically from a seed which you are, later, unable to identify or remember. “Downsizing” is one such story…
In this podcast I am going to read “Park’n’Ride”, a short story included in the 2022 international short story anthology “Making Marks in the Sand”, and to be included in my collection “An Irregular Piece of Sky” which will be published later this year.
Living not far from Nottingham for nearly two years, taking a ride into the centre of the city on the tram was always a fascinating experience. Although the dialogue in the story is entirely fictitious, “Park’n’Ride” relates to an actual experience I had one day returning to my out-of-town parked car…
By the time Ian Gouge went to university he had already lived in seventeen different places - houses, pre-fabs, flats, rooms of one sort or another - and all within the environs of the same two towns: Portsmouth and Gosport, on the south coast of England. No single location more than four miles from the next, between some you could have measured the distance in hundreds of yards. If you put a pin in a map for each, the resulting image would look like the aftermath of a rather well-played game of ‘pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey’ (see page 9).
A number of these accommodations had been emergency refuges provided by the Local Authority to stave off homelessness; two the 60s/70s equivalents of ‘sofa surfing’. But in reality, every single residence proved temporary. Exactly at a time when a child needed security, the very notions of ‘home’, ‘family’ - even ‘love’ - were being challenged, their meanings redefined, shaken to their core; experiences which scarred both an upbringing and the future which followed it.
In the major thread of “The Homelessness of a Child”, the poet reflects on that childhood, explores its events and repercussions. Inevitably it is both a passionate and dispassionate retelling, the latter a result of the detachment a young boy would learn to adopt in order to protect himself from the chaos of the world he was forced to inhabit.
Myths attach themselves to just about everything. This is certainly true in the case of English native trees. Pagan, mystical or religious, some of these are well-known, but others are more obscure.
In “The Myths of Native Trees”, Ian Gouge uses fragments from some of these myths as the basis for a suite of poems which are in turn mystical, lyrical.
We build our own myths too. Myths about our past - or our imagined past - and about our relationship with the world around us, real or otherwise. “The Myths of Native Trees” also teases at some of these, in some cases celebrating them, in others revelling in their inescapable opacity.
A little like Punctuations from History, my slim 2019 collection, First-time Visions of Earth from Space, is one which largely crept up on me as a somewhat random accumulation of individual poems.
Having said that, during the drafting and compilation process I was able to split the work into three general areas or themes: Firsts, Lasts, and those somewhere in-between.
I have attempted to provide a background to the whole endeavour - from inspiration to collation - in the collection’s introduction. This was the first time I used such a device and has thus far been repeated just once more in my 2021 volume, The Homelessness of a Child, where providing some historical context was absolutely essential.
The title poem of First-time Visions of Earth from Space was inspired by having seen photographs taken on the first manned space flights and then subsequently reading how Apollo astronauts struggled to describe what they had witnessed through the window of their spacecraft. I found myself fascinated by the difficulty they encountered. Not just the challenge of language and its casual inadequacy - but also the astronauts’ compulsive need to depict and interpret at all. The wonderful and totally 'authentic' images they captured (and which they would not see developed until after their flight, of course) were never going to be enough to act as effective translations for their emotions.
In this podcast I will read four poems from First-time Visions of Earth from Space.