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- Herausgeber: The Emma Press
- Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015
In rural Wales, wandering the dunes west of Pwllheli, John Fuller has composed a letter on the subject of travel: warning against it, wondering about people's presences and absences, and serenely admiring 'the Wales of sheep and song'. His correspondent, young Andrew Wynn Owen, replies with friendly enthusiasm, matching John's poetic form while flouting his advice and hopping from gallery to garret via Luxembourg and Venice. Between them, they consider: is it better to risk seeming 'stay-at-home, | A stick in mud' or 'to pass life scared | Of stillnesses' AWOL is an infinitely charming collaboration between the eminent poet John Fuller, with a career spanning over 50 years, and bright young poet Andrew Wynn Owen, whose first pamphlet was published in 2014. Beautifully produced in a large square format, this book is illustrated throughout in full-colour with watercolours and line drawings by Emma Wright. The epistolary poems are composed in terza rima in tetrameter lines, reflecting both poets' love of metre and formal challenges.
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Contents
Cover
Title page
For Andrew Wynn Owen, in Luxembourg
Illustration 1
1. ‘After an academic year...’
2. ‘Now, did you find it hard to stand...’
3. ‘My Eccos echo as they must...’
4. ‘Here is a little snail. It might...’
5. ‘So, Wales it is again. The sun...’
Illustration 2
6. ‘This is the Wales of sheep and song...’
7. ‘Suddenly to be found missing...’
8. ‘And then there are the islands, chunks...’
9. ‘Now, there are some who’ve gone from here...’
Illustration 3
10. ‘But you and I! When life is full...’
11. ‘It needs a different agenda...’
12. ‘Then there are those we never see...’
Illustration 4
For John Fuller, in Oxford
1. ‘ Right now, the August lightning falls...’
2. ‘Escaping from life’s usual trudge?’
3. ‘The people I can’t stand don’t sin.’
4. ‘Hot mornings I wake up and say...’
Illustration 5
5. ‘Now variation...’
6. ‘Transalpine expedition now...’
Illustration 6
7. ‘I saw a little squid today.’
8. ‘I’d like to name a new emotion.’
9. ‘Of painting now let’s pause to speak.’
10. ‘A story’s told about a farmer...’
11. ‘But, look, there is a world to save.’
12. ‘Calm morning light bathes Europe now.’
Illustration 7
About the poets and illustrator
About the Emma Press
Also from the Emma Press
Copyright page
AWOL
Poems by John Fuller and Andrew Wynn Owen
Illustrations by Emma Wright
The Emma Press
* * *
For Andrew Wynn Owen, in Luxembourg
* * *
1.
After an academic year
Of intellectualization,
A student relishes the sheer
Vacuity of his vacation.
He doesn’t feel he’s growing old.
The job of finding his vocation
(Or any job) is put on hold.
The pen drops from his listless hand;
Even his emails leave him cold.
The morning is a foreign land.
He won’t get up till twelve o’clock
And breakfast is permanently banned.
Routine has taken quite a knock.
This is a state of vacancy
That’s closer to a state of shock.
You’re absent without leave, you see.
But what do you feel you’re absent from?
Not from the university
Of course. The Bursar’s axiom
Is: cram the place with conferences.
He’s like a sergeant at the Somme
Ticking survivors in a census,
Delighted at numbers on a list
Regardless of the consequences.
It’s not from college you’ll be missed
(Your place is filled by a Chinese
Revisionary Taoist).
No, what gives us this unease
Is that you’re absent from the core
Of your own life. You’re overseas,
Inscrutable, and gone. What’s more,
You’re having nothing to do with us.
We don’t know what on earth it’s for.
Is it to be anonymous?
Why won’t you tell us your address?
Are you fed up with all the fuss
Attendant on your great success?
You’re simply absent. You’re not here.
But we’ll put up with it... God bless.
2.
Now: did you find it hard to stand
Aside from life awhile, and think
Of what it would be like unplanned?
Dizzy, as after that fourth drink,
When cogitation falls away
And you are teetering on the brink
Of something? Not just one more day
When you might do something slightly strange
Or find something tremendous to say –
But a true bouleversement, a change
Of direction, like a levitating
Or the onset of complete derange-
Ment of the senses. Were you waiting
For this? Were you waiting all along?
Had you been procrastinating?
If it were me, it couldn’t be wrong
To do almost anything conceivable,
Like climbing, or bursting into song,
Or believing in the unbelievable.
When it is wasted, time is lost,
And every loss is irretrievable.
Frontiers intended to be crossed
Are truly daunting to us settled
Beasts who justify the cost
Of never stirring from our kettled
Introspections. We take the view
That it’s much nicer not to be nettled.
And pray in slippers from the pew
Of our own fireside. Is that me?
