NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW ON-LINE

Without wishing to begin this review on an overly critical note, the perennial question raised by the SUMMER BULLETIN is: "How much of this material is of interest beyond functioning as a vehicle for the varied vocabularies and idioms of Yorkshire dialect?" Even as an aficionado, I often find the answer disappointing; but if this publication is primarily an arena for the celebration, consolidation, and (yes!) the evolutionary development of a linguistic resource, then it continues to serve a valuable purpose.

So what does #49 have to offer? There is the usual mix of poetry, prose, and YDS-related features. To the uninitiated much of it will be fairly opaque: the dialect's retention of many words of archaic Norse and Saxon origin, plus contributors' individual approaches to phonetic spelling, necessitate some level of background knowledge if these texts are ever to seem more than curious fossils chipped from a stratum of lexical mass-extinction.

As usual, most of the verse is anecdotal/humourous and constrained by end-rhymes, often (I feel) at the expense of a potentially much richer idiomatic narrative. Perhaps this is generally perceived to be the "house style", representing a wish to follow the lead of the dialect poets of the 19th Century industrial scene, or the 17th Century broadsheets. Although this is not intrinsically problematic, it has ultimately only ever been a truly successful strategy for a minority of writers. This year, out of seven poems that beat the traditional path, Brian Spencer's ELUSIVE 'LOOANCE comes closest to working as an amusing "party piece", and if Harry P. Brooks could have held back from the bathos event-horizon T' BOB-'OILE might have pipped Dorothy Taylor's DOWSBRY QUACK MARKET at the post in the nostalgia-tinted handicap.

But before you give up on the entire project, and dive back into the clickstream in search of livelier fare, consider Gerald England's SIX YORKSHIRE HAIKU — on their own merit, as pointers to a wider appreciation of the possibilities of dialect poetry, and useful model for further development.

Even among Japanese haijin the staggering diversity of approaches to the writing of haiku would appear to make a mockery of earnest Western disputes over questions of "authenticity". Inclusion (or not) of a traditional (or not) "season word", valid (or not) use of metaphor, explicit (or not) reference to Zen — the list is quite daunting, and might even include: subject matter directly (or not) perceived (or not) from the natural (or not) world (or not!). This being the case, and given a century of experimentation with haiku-form in many languages, there can be no plausible a priori objection to Yorkshire dialect haiku.

My favourites from the six are:

	hot efternooin
	sheep on t'fells kip
	bi a stoan

	med blahnd
	bi t'low Jan'ry sun
	Paris ti Hades

Continuing the tradition of contributions of pieces of "heritage" dialect, often, as in this case, having been transmitted through a family connection, PORRIDGE IN A LANTERN by James Ogden is both poignant and to the point.

Of the six creative prose pieces in this issue, I warmed most readily to Mark Saxby's LIFE IN OOR VILLAGE. The humour is gentle and observational, the "plot" almost completely inconsequential — but the music of the East Riding dialect (still charmingly alien to my West Riding ear) is arguably an end in itself.

Nigel Leary's PONTEFRACT — A REIGHT DAY AHT actually managed to push my nostalgia button with its quick tour of locations around a town I remember fondly from childhood, but is its tone of manic jollity really necessary?

Although Ian Cowburn's T' RUGBY LEAGUE would almost certainly pass through a content-analysis sieve without leaving behind a single lump, its West Riding dialect rings true — which neatly bites the tail of my opening proposition. If these texts are assertions of a treasured subset of the writers' vocabulary, resonating most sharply within the framework of a particular memory, insight, or fantasy — perhaps one as localized in terms of geography and history as the dialect employed to recreate it — then they clearly exist in a conceptual and aesthetic space somewhat tangential to mainstream (modern language) discourse.

This does not mean that our precious critical toolkit is suddenly obsolete in the face of archetypal logotropisms. The game is still on, and I believe there's everything to play for.

The current editor, Muriel Shackleton, says that this is her last editorial. She is standing down after fifteen years. The bulletin is A5, stapled, and extends to 32 pages of poetry, anecdotes and information, concentrating on Yorkshire dialect.

I find dialect somewhat difficult to read and tedious going. However, the whole point is that it is a spoken art. This is something predominantly for oral rendition and not for the page. It only comes alive when spoken. Furthermore, such societies give a flavour of the history of different areas, and how dialects can and do change. The way in which people speak and why they do so is a fascinating subject. For Yorkshire people this is a part of their background — their tradition. In his short story, Ernest Beaumont tackles DIPPING SHEEP — AND OTHER THINGS:

Catchin t'sheep an lowerin em inta that stinkin mess wor t'farmer's son, missen (we wor boath in as teens) as Lawrence, known to us as Lonce. Lonce was nobbet short, but nearly as wide as e wor tall e wor as strong as a lion, but wi a gentle touch. Have seen im pick a wild rabbit up aht on a clump a grass wen nubdy else ad even seen it. 'E wor a reight countryman, he'd cum walkin in wi a gret red anky full a luvly mushrooms wen nubdy else cud finnd ony.

	Tha remembers, Ah allus wor sweet on Tom Greenway,
	Ow often Have mooned o-er is merry brown eyes.
	Well, ah saw im last neet, an e sex, "Ello Mary —
	Ar ter gooin my way?" — Ah fair blushed wi surprise.

The issue starts with a brief tribute to and a farewell message from retiring editor Muriel Shackleton. A few pages are used for notices of meetings and publications and news of members, but for the most part it is packed with a variety of prose and poetry.

My favourite from the poetry is Leslie Ward's search for a wife — a tale of the courtship wiles of a sheep farmer after a lass wi' strong legs an' teeth, but his scheme backfires and he remains a bachelor.

There is humour in most of the writing and this holds true in Ian Cowburn's version of the polyglot parrot. The punchline comes before the end of the tale which I won't repeat so as not spoil the joke — though I'm sure there are versions circulating the globe via email! At the end there's a sort of codicil:

"By Eck," said Arold tu t'landlord, "Th's reight. It is a clever bird. Ah reckon if we could nobbut cross it wi one o mi brother-in-law's oming pigeons, when young uns grew up we could get em to carry verbal messages."