David Chorlton Bücher

The Unmapped Worlds in this book extend from history to a way of life centered on European villages to the marginally surreal experience of our own times. The poems are previously uncollected ones enjoying their rediscovery. Whether through the visions of a medieval mystic or the routines that defined existence in a small town on the free world’s edge, David Chorlton reaches for what brought the mind to life in the course of living from day to day. The desert emerges as it appeared to early missionaries and conquerors in the Southwest and comes to bear multiple cultures today. Writing is a journey to the poet, and the work here follows some occasionally surprising side roads for Chorlton.

In his twelfth full-length poetry collection, popular elder poet David Chorlton presents us with thirty-one new poems that reflect the natural and human aspects of the world in a birds eye. His keen observational sensitivities are everywhere apparent in these poems. In imagery gleaned primarily from the Southwestern region, Chorlton presents us with a naturalistic morality. Although his diction leans to the lean-side, his sense of musicality is sonorous and melodic. Chorlton was born in England and traveled extensively throughout Northern Europe in his youth. Marriage brought him to Arizona, where he has embraced the wildlife, geography and people of that region. A subtle level of social criticism winds its way through these poems. Chorlton often juxtapositions natural images with cultural images. The symbol of a bird on a wire aptly represents his poetic persona, which is in the vein of a Gary Snyder or W S Merwin.