{"id":1198,"date":"2025-12-10T12:21:26","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T12:21:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spikehowarth.com\/?page_id=1198"},"modified":"2026-01-06T16:31:30","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T16:31:30","slug":"elementor-1198","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/spikehowarth.com\/?page_id=1198","title":{"rendered":"Publishings"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Publishings<\/h1>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Printed features of various forms. More to come.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Released in 2022, Citizine is a mixed-media print by the talented up-and-coming Hackney-based shot-taker Sam Solman. It also features the brilliant illustrations and musings of an old and dear friend of mine, Lucas Everett. Solman has an eye for the beautiful day-to-day, shown clearly as he focuses on Manchester and London. There is a rawness to his work that balances the gritty and the heartwarming, a fine line I often fumble around with in my poetry.<\/p>

I met Sam when visiting Lucas at the University of Manchester, whilst I was studying at UCL. I quickly grew to love Manny on my many escapades northwards\u2014to Leeds, Notts, and Liverpool. I believe Sam and Lucas did an excellent job encapsulating the shared experiences and unique aspects of these two gorgeous cities.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Houghton Festival<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Early August, tucked away in Norfolk, lapping the otherworldly King’s Lynn lake,\u00a0 Houghton Festival speaks its sleepless sound. Curated by the power couple, savant DJ Craig Richards and tasteful creative director Amanda Richards, Houghton is a festival of immense original artistic magnitude.<\/p>

With a sculpture park, utopian installations, acutely balanced sound systems, a staggering setlist, a 24-hour music license, and lake-shimmering\/tree-dancing light shows, Houghton leads the festival scene in many ways.<\/p>

By day, you may catch Spike selling snacks and merch at the general store, but by night, you probably won’t find him. He’s lost in orbit.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Lacustrine Orbital - Preface<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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In 2024, I submitted a proposal for a poem etched into the fence that laps around the lake. Naturally, this was not feasible, so it was printed and hung up in the Orchard.<\/p>

Lacustrine Orbital<\/em>, meaning relating to lakes relating to orbits<\/em>, attempts to encapsulate the intangible Houghton fairytale. The poem follows a group of friends who trace a lap of the lake, encountering peculiar characters, sounds, and scapes. They get lost in the forest. Balancing twofold fantasies, futuristic\/familiar, space\/earth, Houghton has been and always will be one of the most creatively inspiring experiences. This is my meagre attempt to add to the fantasy and give back to the festival that has given so much to shaping my formative self.<\/p>

If you think of being lost, you may picture images of isolation, of needing guidance. Being lost at Houghton means quite the opposite. It means finding new family, new music, new art, new life. We go to get lost. There is too much care, too much love, and vibrance for isolation and guidance requirements. In around 2000 words, I have tried to match that magic \u2013 an unlikely endeavour.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t

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Lacustrine Orbital<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Let me in<\/i>
We utter to the sycamore gatekeepers.
Two or so of us. We speak for ourselves, move as one.
In unison we mooch by aliens. They rest on the benches.
Their nourishment otherworldly. Their muscles slack.
Stacking goods from interplanetary visits:
Nebula ribbons, dark matter shades,
And worm hole bum bags.
All paid for in sum.<\/p>

Drifting from grass to earth, we sense the honey hiss.
Different sweetenings curling here or there,
Swerving upturned mouths and hunching backs.
Returning to a crunchy twig thud and mud so forgiving.
Pass us a sip of life, we say. Our water orbit reminds:
All breathes, all flies, all are somewhat spent,
All skies that only glistened, would fidget alight again.<\/p>

Pass the retired dancers and sunken thighs stumbling,
Whose loose feet skip to the candy chorus their legs remember.
Working against current, fighting gruff tides.
Tides of September slumber.
We recall a purring summer instead,
Twitching hums to any rhythm left.
We ought to head where their stillness descended,
I say to my shape-shifting companions.<\/p>

Bops and weaves which wait around the bend,
They play to our delight; deliver us in tune,
To other friends, who beg we quicken and catch up.
They lie amongst the nymphs and faeries.
Out flies fluttering forest gliders, confiding in shifty blades,
Angling hips, outfits snatched,
Those who await can but offer their back up.<\/p>

Flickers in trees o\u2019er yonder lakeside,
Across the ripples, bouncing to greet our telescope gazes.
Look! The goblins guard the mushrooms,
They\u2019re projecting all the light for us to amaze at.<\/i>
Some of us cannot spy them, maybe another night.
Perhaps it\u2019s for the best,
My vision contorting,
Our direction a mess.<\/p>

We pace toward the deeper shrubs.
A brutalist structure, corrugated and bare,
Which appears at once beneath thicker leaves,
Towers upon us, staring, calling.
And it spits out a space-suit satyr.
Their complexion utterly perplexed,
Telling us we must adore it.<\/p>

Oh, we disappeared for\u2026 what was it?
Just a few tics? A couple sets? Whiles at a time.
We were too caught in non-Euclidean
Shapes and shades that flew behind the DJ.
TVs, or portals, or mechanical eyes,
Whatever pockets of flying paint,
However long we were acquainted.
We were entranced. That\u2019s all I can say.<\/p>

Like the floating satyr before us,
We too were thrown up and out the warehouse,
Slightly torn up; the Orchard presents
A spot for rest. We pour our bodies into hammocks,
Cemented, clay-baked for not a moment too long.
Save the day for revival, Aceso spurs us on.<\/p>

Pan onlooks from deeper within, luring us to forward press,
Foxtrot and frolic our dangling locks.
Jesting at our desire to mesh with relaxing mats,
He bumps up his arcadia hypnosis,
But forage we must for winks of shut eye where possible,
We ambled away, revitalised, intact, and torn in the idea:
Should we adhere or ignore him?<\/p>

When our saviour sun spoke clearer, we veered for the latter.
Galloping lacustrine lights that confront us,
As the day whispers not, turn us to jitter.
Flirting with the water surface, an encouraging hippocampus,
Urging us to slither deeper still.
This forest is a cave? An ocean? An endless space!
One of its nooks boasts wooden arches.
We slumped here for enrichment.
Wordsmiths and august echoers
Mellowed us, they are the pinters.
By day their barn was sophisticated, creative.
Under stars and iridescent illumination,
A feral transformation. Willing us drastically technical,
We are young to the holt, impractically unskeptical,
And of course we step in time.
Still magnetised by land laid when continents kissed,
A bitty pocket opening,
The pavilion. A rustic song-palace.<\/p>

Here, Yesterday, with this exact lot.
A metallic winged butterfly,
Started menacing on the mixer\u2019s drum pad.
Or was it a moth? Either way, their beat was akin to
A medieval woven tapestry smacked with a bop
That was oh so protoconscious. It would\u2019ve been a calamity
If we weren\u2019t so simple too. And that memory,
That was then. So separated. It musta been double digit
Rollies since, when was it? Ten-ish.
Our lungs bad. Our divided fungi abandoned the fidget,
Now they soothe with tunes
Played in tandem with the gut biome band.<\/p>

We can stand no longer, one contested.
A wiser one called that rave nerves. I\u2019m sure as shit anxious to
Groove and raving whether muddy turf, beaming sun,
Pissing rain, unforgiving earth, a rumbling tum.
Even if one, just smile at the speakers.
Speak to me sweetness.
Sourer flowers take our hands and lug us.
To the crux, past the aunt teachers,<\/p>

Furthermore lie the untidier creatures,
Their nods are wilder, levelled at rarer resonance.
Beside outer-rim vessels and jewel-bedazzled caverns,
Let me go. Allow me roam. A stone\u2019s throw and
A couple more throws, till we smell normality.
Irks of reality, your tone will tell,
Do not sedate us, dear Houghton.
Grow us well.
Empower us in the dirt beneath.
Meshed to an earthling,
We bounce to root quakes,
With magic belief.<\/p>

Our union undertaken,
Overruled by synchronisation.
Onward, upon us a vibrant fog.
Only it\u2019s blazer pockets,
Offering boggling depth,
Oust an alternate option:<\/p>

A shire for the wired, the innards contort.
Those sparkles aren\u2019t sapphires.
They\u2019re tooth gems etched in roof dwellers
\u2013 With otherwise indiscernible features \u2013
Which shine for yellers when cheers erupt.
Centauri silver irises,
A little unnerving, mostly inviting. I turn twice.
Once to my left: a few cards of the pack.
An empty right side: the rest got lost a way back
To orders of aces and jacks of the mycelium court.
In vices and merits, then, surely, we ought to
Take their preachings. Grab a gulp of water,
A pair of vine-wrapped mechanical wood wings,
Whose pinions are powered by bark, and
Breach inward.<\/p>

Where the wizard has the crowd on a thousand shoestrings,
Puppeteering them to sway,
Limbs, flying things, wheels, thin air,
However one moves, that sorcerer got it grooving.
Through basslines the unity encasing.
Our synapses fire and crackle at
Most subtle rumbles and every skanking slap.
I thought I knew a hand I grabbed nearer.
When the hive unravelled,
It was barely a talon, heaving me from unrest,
Another claw points me elsewhere,
Granting me a gallon of foreign elixir.<\/p>

Ohhh this astronomical pterodactyl prophesised
A fantastical anomaly night filled with certainties promised awry.
To the prehistoric, I posited:
Does the day not await our fate completion?<\/i><\/p>

And the bird-thing cackled:
Day could not wait.
For it dances in the nearest glade
To a spectrum sunlight tune,
Made of dragon fruit pinkish hues,
Yellows from a young leaf, and
Murky maroons of the tunnels beneath.
Spare the sun your youthful condescension,
It\u2019ll cut shapes in shadows longer than you.<\/i><\/p>

Behind me, a character from my closer crew,
I thought were askew and lost,
Is getting the same apprehension.
Except, they\u2019re lectured by another casting member
Of the renaissance zoo.
A bipedal ewe with false teeth,
Wearing wraparound neon visors,
And Cinderella-esque climbing shoes.<\/p>

I grab my mate beside her,
Offer an embrace,
That\u2019s lucky,
I forgot you in the mist!<\/i>
I step in front, we\u2019ve each other again.
An outburst of life in flashes, then lows, then umfs,
Then calling harmony.
Presented by the tree that faces us,
It\u2019s audience largely marching, miffed,
But partly passing sap around.
This nectar acquired down the thicker emerald hallways,
Which lapped around all the pinches of play area.
We all orbit something.
That ain\u2019t profound.<\/p>

And wherever, regardless, we never peep doors with scary errs,
For our stratosphere neighbours were friendly,
As were the donners of darker shrub corners.
Backlit shadowy beings, yes,
But they still wear ear plugs.
They\u2019re not so outrageous!
Can you make out those nearing the raving void?
Switching figure and essence
For silhouette and momentary presence.
They speak only to the skittish wisps \u2013
(Who get on with everyone, they\u2019re rather progressive).<\/p>

Observing these teeny wind-mites lurking on the outburst outskirts,
There appears a greatly missed face. Another lost chum.
It\u2019s been eons, minimally a few stages!
They were panting,
Covered in a layer of gold sparkling soot:
I know\u2026 I\u2019m beyond it \u2026 I\u2026
Got stuck chatting pure muck to the mini hurricaners,
Scuttling along, absolute drainers,
Brought the storm with them!
I was wrapped up for ages,
No wonder I\u2019m covered in dust.<\/i><\/p>

I wager:
No point to decipher
I\u2019ll meet \u2018em someday. Come on. There\u2019s too much to do.<\/i><\/p>

We sauntered now, painlessly aimless.
Not complete, still missing another.
But they\u2019ll find themselves, with a further travelling group.
In cavities uncovered only on the wrongest turns,
An unbeaten route, ambling intoxicated phases.
Pissing ourselves at the most remarkable yarns,
Spun by none other than the Mummy long legs.<\/p>

Frankly, we couldn\u2019t recall it exactly.
Not too dissimilar from our lacustrine endeavours.
Mother widow mentioned something similar to
A school or more of ethereal critters.
Their mutual: a mouthy mayfly.<\/p>

A peculiar floater, I must say.
Bringing them together alongside precisely mild weather,
In a bubble which followed it with nanosecond delay.<\/i><\/p>

Ma arachnid backflipped and hopped around,
Acting out the bug batch\u2019s adventures,
Telling us this lot met the bipedal ewe too
(When they had more permanent dentures.)
She skipped in air and grounded with emphasis,
Mentioning how one of them, likewise,
Got a bit lost in the sauce.<\/p>

Well then, silly, you shouldn\u2019t be cooking!<\/i><\/p>

She had to implore,
Which we must concur.
Her charm and narrative majesty are
Too much to ignore and dismiss.
Nearly flooring ourselves cackling,
When she speaks of the diamond back snake with a tickling lisp.
It\u2019s iffy how time got the first train away from King\u2019s Lynn,
Near or abouts halfway Thursday.
How many orbits?<\/p>

This crawly yarn spinner afront us,
Ate away hours and hours of dance, it\u2019s all a bit murky.
We\u2019ll probably be entranced next time around,
It was worth the waffle.
No worries!
Just plea with the temporally ambiguous squirrel,
His tricky acorn performs triple oddities:
Peep the watch, more or less three hours before what you thought.<\/p>

Skip with all the boundlessness,
Styling, sipping life till the ice slurps back.
Our fallen bud off in the woodland.
In a field of blood orange moons,
Find the stallions managing a cauldron of
Extrapedestrians, storied forest citizens,
Some regulars, some cluster tourers.
Stuff a supernova in the hold luggage,
We\u2019ll soon be certified galaxy explorers.<\/p>

Surely we\u2019ve earnt that.
For however many loops we twist,
Friends who go up in smoke, wish upon to find.
See you past the giant steps,
At the dwarf star station, 8:35.
Mind the curved sack, my carry on\u2019s a comet,
Craig said he\u2019ll be there. Half nine.<\/p>

Stop a second. Have you heard that?<\/i><\/p>

Strung along a titan\u2019s hair strand zip line,
Tethered above the crowd,
The final piece of the puzzle,
Donning unfathomable ornaments,
Melete\u2019s sneakers, an absurd hat,
Loud in return, our awaited friend,
Juggling a Pegasus feather with wand elegance,
Spewing an endless light spectrum.
In their other grip,
Loaning a few of the wizard\u2019s spare laces,
Gracing motionless ravers again
To join the stillness protest.<\/p>

We won\u2019t recall the exact moves,
But we were lightyears afar, jigsaw complete,
Decades in tune, pirouetting the hallside lake.
Go! Yes! Sneak the feet a rub, the knees a reset.
Or keep with the current.
Toss about in gleaming dust.
Continue to be misplaced with
Strutting grace amongst the most
Spatially uncontained specimens.
We claim we are without energy to expend,
But swear we\u2019ll spin again. No doubt.<\/p>

For now:
Let me out<\/i><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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This is me roaming free at a festival, as I have always done. My Mum used to scribe her number on my forearm, so I could get someone to call her if I ever got lost\u2014she had a Sharpie on hand that day. There are only a few things I remember before learning her number by heart. Love you, Mum.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Publishings Printed features of various forms. More to come. Released in 2022, Citizine is a mixed-media print by the talented up-and-coming Hackney-based shot-taker Sam Solman. It also features the brilliant illustrations and musings of an old and dear friend of mine, Lucas Everett. Solman has an eye for the beautiful day-to-day, shown clearly as he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":10,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"elementor_canvas","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"no-sidebar","site-content-layout":"page-builder","ast-site-content-layout":"full-width-container","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"disabled","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"disabled","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1198","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spikehowarth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spikehowarth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spikehowarth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spikehowarth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spikehowarth.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1198"}],"version-history":[{"count":39,"href":"https:\/\/spikehowarth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1198\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1478,"href":"https:\/\/spikehowarth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1198\/revisions\/1478"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spikehowarth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spikehowarth.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}