gentle, therapeutic touch for bed and board. Later research revealed that I’m part of an ancient tradition of itinerant healers offering solace on the road. Blogability f o r u m ‘I Walking Without a Donkey details shiatsu practitioner Tamsin Grainger’s walks through rural and urban landscapes. R L Stevenson, who wrote Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes, hired a mule for his French walk. I carry a rucksack; I’m the ass! I’ve walked over Three Sacred Mountains in Austria and skirted coastlines in Portugal and Scotland. With these adventures, and many more, I hope to promote slow travel, inspire other women to explore, and give my readers the courage to ditch air travel for the sake of the environment. ■ Walking Without a Donkey began in 2016, when I prised my depressed self off the sofa and took a sabbatical. ‘I’d like to barter shiatsu for hospitality – anyone interested?’ I posted on Facebook. Leaving home for the first time, aged 52, this was how my walking life began. Exchanging TAMSIN GRAINGER is self-employed. She writes, makes art and gives shiatsu massage. She enjoys wild sea swimming and is currently seeking a publisher for her memoir, an extract of which was recently published in Hinterland’s Climate Writing Special. www.walkingwithoutadonkey.com craved to go beyond the garden gate, to follow the road that passed it by and to set out for the unknown.’ – Alexandra David-Neel, My Journey to Llasa As I walked with my hefty rucksack down the French coast to Mont Saint-Michel at the maritime corner of southern Normandy, several people enquired: ‘Are you walking there?’ I was puzzled. ‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘via the boardwalk which crosses the bay, from the south.’ During the fifth such conversation, someone explained: ‘You know, you can cross the sands from Genêts on foot too.’ Then I understood what I had to do. It’s impossible to make the journey from the east alone as the way is treacherous, but there are two companies which offer group trips. It was busy, possibly the busiest day of the year, and though there were people leaving every 30 minutes, I had to wait. What a wonderful and moving experience! Wading barefoot through sinking sands, layers of time seemed to concertina, and I was simultaneously my contemporary self and a medieval pilgrim, arriving from afar at the culmination of an arduous journey, full of expectation. Extract from ‘Genêts – Mont Saint-Michel – BasCourtils, 2017’ ❐ WRITING NEST I hung my husband’s father’s painting of a vase of flowers in an open window above my desk, giving the impression of a wondrous view! A photo of Mary Wollstonecraft who wrote a pioneering treatise on women’s rights in 1792 also holds pride of place. T C ARKLE BEAR NECESSITIES My wooden pig, Peregrine. Bought on a whim from a shop in London’s Jermyn Street with my Christmas bonus, he rests with crossed trotters alongside me. When writer’s block hits, I glance up at him. His knowing look gives me hope that inspiration will soon return. ABBY VIZARDWILLIAMS p oll STOCK / ADOBE : TUNGCHUNG IMAGE Should prose poems really be classed as short fiction? ◗ Yes 28.9% ◗ No 71.1% Wow! Just over one in four of you thought that prose poems should be reclassified to sit with short fiction. Here’s what you had to say about the topic... @gkelley_writes: Maybe prose poetry/haibun can blur the lines a bit? Too limiting otherwise. @anjgi: Many years ago I submitted a prose poem about Boris Karloff and Enfield’s literary pretensions to an Enfield poetry group. I was told in no uncertain terms that said poem was not poetry. @phoenixrising_chronicles: Depends on how many lines. 60+ lines most certainly. @siameadeswilliams: Novels can also be poems. It all goes a bit ‘what is a poem’ otherwise, I don’t think we need barriers around creativity! @hedgehogephemera: Depends if they’re fictional. Or short. @KateSFAuthor: Prose poetry could be described as short literary fiction. It is prose with many aspects of poetry deployed to give the work meaning and shape as the author intended. Our need to classify and create categories might limit the reach of the work to niche audiences. @thirteenlime: They could probably be classed as flash fiction in some cases, but I’m not sure it really matters too much. @bookshelf_backchat: It’s up to the poet, but I would struggle to say, like, ‘Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ wasn’t short fiction. @fromsarahspen: They’re poems. If a poet wanted to write short fiction, that’s what they’d write. 5 FORUM / Mslexia / Dec/Jan/Feb 2024/25