After featuring in the BBC Proms Poetry and the Bread & Roses awards, West Sussex local Barry Smith's debut collection explorers the notion of life as performance. The poems examine ideas of change and transformation, of becoming, of disintegration and discovery.
There are poems on both classical and popular music, on art, on theatre, poetry and clowns. The scope covers social rituals, philosophy, cultural transmission, political games, medical rites and the theatre of the natural world. It is a rollercoaster ride of highs and lows in a richly cultured landscape where readers, as both protagonist and audience, are called upon to measure their own experiences against the poet's multi-layered exploration of the rituals of performance.