Gutted Arcades of the Past

Imprisoned in a Liverpool of self 

I haunt the gutted arcades of the past.

Where it lies on some high forgotten shelf

I find what I was looking for at last.

But now the shelf has turned into a mast 

And now the mast into an uptorn tree

Where one sways crucified twixt two of me.

Gutted Arcades of the Past is an on-going project that I have been working on since 2009.

The project is an attempt to create an encyclopaedia of Malcolm Lowry’s early life and work from 1909 to 1934. The cut off date of 1934 was chosen as a symbolic one reflecting him turning his back on Europe for the New World leaving Southampton on 28th July 1934 for New York aboard the Aquitania.

I have now decided to start sharing my work in the form of a blog to sit alongside my main Lowry blog Malcolm Lowry @ The 19th Hole. Gutted Arcades of the Past will evolve as my research continues but the biggest impact in the future for the project is what will be revealed on publication of Lowry’s re-discovered manuscript of his novel In Ballast to the White Sea.