Travelator: (Salt Modern Poets)

One day, the poet found himself with a dying poem. So, out of sheer frustration, he took a pair of scissors to it and began to cut the poem up and rearrange it, without looking at what he was doing. Suddenly, a poem that had been destined for the file marked “worthy but dull” sparked to life again, and he found himself excited by the possibilities of language again. Since then, this technique – and other uses of chance – have come to be increasingly important in his work. Constantly looking for the wonderful in the ordinary, the beautiful in the demotic, he is still essentially a lyric poet but in this book, he messes up the lyric's hair, exploring the the chances and encounters of modern life in vibrant, exploratory poems. A major section of the book are the Travelator Sonnets, inspired by Ted Berrigan’s pioneering Sonnets and the boxes of Joseph Cornell, cut-and-paste sonnets exploring nostalgia, travel and the chance encounters of modern life in 14 lines. Other poems explore his life in Manchester, his travels to Europe and Africa and his relationships, and there is a section of early poems that explore similar themes.

Table of Contents:
Part I Travelator: Random Sonnets Eating Paella My Bed Harold Wilson After Sappho: Fragment 31 For the Weekend Homeless Euro ’96 Mother Bad Cold Geocentric Prospects 2 The Man Who The All-Purpose Stars Travelator On the Town/ Dun Laoghaire The Raven Advice Column Designer Eyewear After Much Rain The Call Pinochet Diz for Prez Air Part II Ghosts on the Wall In Bed Three Poems About Love From the Specials Board Ghost The Pole Star, for Poem (Abandoned) In Hitler’s Bath Exile’s Lament Peace Poem The Blind Postman Catching the 22 Every Planet Has a North The Westerner The Man with Blues Guitar The Prospects The Crocodile Opens its Mouth Trade is Increasing Before Another Garage Sunday Gabba Gabba Hey (To Punk Rock) You Showed Us Your Row of Cups Pound Shop Through the White Hole Triplets That Summer Short Dreams in Didsbury The Eternal Lazarus Cod Tourist Information The Tuna Wars From the Country of Lost Hats Myopia Temporary Entrance John’s Picture The Annunciation

About the Author :
Steven Waling was born in Accrington, Lancashire in 1958, and has lived in Manchester since 1980. He won the Smith/Doorstop Pamphlet Competition with his first publication, Riding Shotgun, in 1988, and also that year was a prizewinner in the Lancaster Festival Poetry Competition. He has since published four books, including Calling Myself On The Phone (Smith/Doorstop)