Monday 5 December 2011

Alan Morrison's Captive Dragons / Shadow Thorns (Part 1)

teleco-soup*

When I wrote about Alan Morrison's A Tapestry of Absent Sitters on 1st April 2009 I naturally had no inkling that my idea of use of the word 'dragon' would spark an epic 'insider' poem of 2,368 lines.

My copy, signed by Alan Morrison, arrived a few days ago. I have yet to read it.

Captive Dragons is a by-product of Morrison's 3 years of voluntary work in the field of mental health as a weekly Poet-in-Residence at Mill View Hospital, Sussex. The book's publication is supported by Star Wards, Sussex NHS Partnership and the Arts Council of England.

On his 'Acknowledgements' page Morrison wrote: "Thanks also to . . . Barry Tebb . . . and to Gwilym Williams for drawing me towards dragons as a motif through a phrase he used in his review of my previous Waterloo collection . . . to Jeremy Reed . . . Mario Petrucci . . . to Steven O'Brien . . ."

Here's the important stuff:

Captive Dragons / The Shadow Thorns
Poems from the Mill View Residency 2008 - 11
by Alan Morrison
ISBN 978 - 190674239 - 3
first published 2011
by Waterloo Press (Hove)
95 Wick Hall
Furze Hill
Hove BN3 1NG
England

My review will appear here soon. Meanwhile stay cool. Or be bold and read another one .

*Image acknowledgement:
Photo by myself of a scene from the Venice Biennale 2011
presentation 'teleco-soup' by Tabaimo (Japan Pavilion).

3 comments:

  1. Hi Gwilym, been offline for a while but good to be back. See what happens when you let a word loose! Dragon eh? But what an honour to feel that you sowed the seed for an epic.

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  2. Many has been following him. He has made history by his words.

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  3. Thanks Gordon, you never know where a casual remark can lead. I remember a truck driver turning up in Blackburn. His boss, who had earlier said: "Take this load to Blackburn," was now on the phone: "You've been gone a long time." Turned out it was Blackburn, Scotland the truck should have gone too.

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