“Why do I like The Matter of Europe? Because it is friendly, yet noble. It all happened and we’re in this together and here we go. It’s useful too.” Hugo Williams “I like its starry diagonality. It’s very well informed. I love the way the Big Bang emerges from Being.”Les MurrayTwo of the pre-publication, unsolicited testimonials received from poets about Sebastian Barker’s amazing book. Sebastian Barker, already much admired as poet and editor, here reveals himself to the world as a true scholar, in the most honourable tradition of persons working outside the university. The Matter of Europe is a series of seven sketches, one cosmological, one human evolutionary, and five cultural. They move from deep time to the present day, linking the physical to the biological, the human to the natural, and culture to culture. They evoke a universe and traditions which are infinitely varied and complex. An 'Index of Selected Names' explains the spirit behind The Matter of Europe in notes on some of the contributors. The list is necessarily brief. It, too, is a bridge into the imagination. The book forms a triptych with Barker's Damnatio Memoriae: Erased from Memory (Enitharmon, 2004) and The Erotics of God (forthcoming, Smokestack Books, 2005).
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