Abel Baker Charlie Delta Epic Sonnets

Set in various pubs - in Exeter, Leeds and Bradford - this group of poems eavesdrops on the conversations of two old friends, Abel Baker, a mariner home from sea, and the landsman, the gypsy, Charlie Delta. The poems record what they see and say and hear: snatches of stories, scraps of song and patter, reminiscence, disconnected remarks, the punchlines of jokes. Many of the poems are fragmentary monologues with unidentified speakers and characters. Abel and Charlie are everyman out on the town: for too long two drinks under par and fast making up for it, weary and worse for wear but still singing. Or they can be taken as modern evocations of the Seafarer and the Wanderer of the Exeter Book, still homeless and kinless. The definition of an epic sonnet is that it should be neither.