Spending Time With Walter

The long poem at the centre of John Hartley Williams' new collection is a dramatic monologue narrated by a laconic, possibly lamed, forest dweller, a lowly crewmember on a barge travelling an unnamed waterway. Some of his remarks are addressed to his talisman, the shrunken head of an African tribesman. The barge carries a sinister cargo and its captain has a preference for sadistic sex. Other poems in the book undertake journeys - to Northern Cyprus, China, medieval France, Florida - but like 'T