Description
Book SynopsisBodypopping Belgians and bicycle couriers populate a world of public fountains and archaeological debris in this original and eclectic collection by James Wilkes.
Trade ReviewJames Wilkes views the city 24/7 from a podium of his own. When he talks he talks quickly, capturing the details that pedestrians miss: the shuffle of clothes, the background tracks. His ambition is to move with the flaneurial swagger that knows the city is always subject to the ever-shifting weather. Where others find congestion and grime Wilkes cuts between the parnassian dead freights, weaving the forms that function for now: reviews, questionnaries, plays. - Chris McCabe This is a book where the pleasure is in the technicolour range of the language and the urgent sense of not quite being there. - Jon Stone The pieces in this book work sur le motif, ending with bits of a transcript from a day spent wandering around London in search of fountains. Half the fun of Weather A System is to watch the inter-operative factors of Wilkes' art begin to sag under the wit of incoherence. - Intercapillary Space There is much to savour in this stimulating and inspiring collection. I thoroughly recommend a poem a day. - David Caddy
Table of ContentsPart One: Collected Civil Ephemera Medical Questionnaire "Clear Sky" Anticyclone: Winter Spring-Summer Collection Carousel Europa Some Theatrical Branches of the Muse's Vine, Which Are Legitimate Topics of Poetry Four Variations on the Same Midwinter Part Two: The Review Pages Griet Hannay, 8 Little Curtain Rings Robert Steinbeck, The Leaping Pebble Mary Dundhed, The Art of the Kilim Kelly Hobbs, Inner Glassware Mahindra Gupta, Mela Tales Chris Shaker, A Dollar and a Half a Day: The Diaries of Isaac Carpenter, Midshapman (ed.) John Seesman, Caliphate Pop Gareth Jenkins, Handles Brusquely Celia Fenchurch, 'Experiments in Living Now', and Ella Solinsky, Elements Provisoires Linda Hadley and Edwin Hak, 6 London Fountains Pieter Peeters, Delta Blueprints Part Three: Three Purbeck Poems Approaching Cleavel Point Vanishing Points: Arne Restless Letters: A Response to Eric Benfield Part Four: Scripts and Transcripts London Bridge; or, A Postal for 3 Voices Try Enter Doss Fountain Transcript #3 63 Fountain Transcript #4 70 Fountain Transcript #5
