Blotter

Synopsis

Oli Hazzard's Blotter Consists Of Five Sequences, Each Constructed Using A Different Process. In 'graig Syfyrddin' Notes On Hillwalking In The Welsh Marches - The Poet's Former Home - Alternate With Found Text Taken From An Online Walking Forum. 'blotter' Is A Shepherd's Calendar Of Sonnets Composed Of Russian Spambot Script - A Mix Of Lifestyle Advice, Gaming Tips, Authoritarian Propaganda, Bucolic Fragments And Apocalyptic Messages. 'within Habit' Is A Series Of Prose Poems Collaged From Numerous Sources. 'march And May' Comprises Parallel Columns Of Verse. 'or As' Is A Family Of 81 Seventeen-syllable Poems, Each One An Erasure Of The Corresponding Page In A Different Book The Poet Was Writing Alongside Blotter.the Poems Are Preoccupied, Above All, With The Passage Of Time, And How That Passage Can Be Differently Registered Or Disturbed: The Working Day, The Distorted Seasons, The Timestamp Of A Text Message, The Jottings Of A Daybook, The Formal Structure Of A Shepherd's Calendar, The Double Exposure Of A Photograph, The Reverse-flow Of A Twitter Feed. The Title, Blotter, Connects These Concerns, Suggesting At Once A Police Blotter, A Journal, A Thing For Drying Wet Spots, And, In Its Painterly Connotation, A Way Of Rendering The World In A Manner That Is Vague, Blurred, Or Out Of Focus.--publisher's Information. Oli Hazzard.