AWOL

John Fuller, Andrew Wynn Owen, Emma Dai'an Wright

• Publisher: The Emma Press
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781910139295
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

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.

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 a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Illustration 1
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• 5.
• Illustration 2
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• 9.
• Illustration 3
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• 11.
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• Illustration 4
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• 2.
• 3.
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• Illustration 5
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• Illustration 7
• About the poets
• About The Emma Press
• Also from the Emma Press