Richard Gwyns fourth collection of poetry documents the lived, transformative experience of travelling. Stowaway takes us on a journey through time and place, focusing on one expansive region, the Levant. We journey throughout the Eastern Mediterranean and Western Asia and witness aspects of historical events, including the fall of Byzantium, the Greco-Turkish War, and the emergence of Daesh . Here, several figures appear: a semi-divine Stowaway, a maker of golems, a poet, and a reckless traveller, among others. These shapeshifting ciphers make the collection simultaneously authentic and mythic.The Stowaway sequence is particularly striking in this respect; Gwyns take on a semi-divine character familiar from Greek myth (though never fully identifiable) is both strange and irresistible. The Stowaway is supernatural, simultaneously divine and demonic, wise and foolish. He learns from living as a human but his perspective is limited.

He fails and falls to earth (and the ocean) like Icarus. His first appearance recalls both Greek mythology and Hans Christian Andersons little mermaid: ''His appearance made of him the seas orphan,naked as he was; his violet eyes,a garland of seaweed draped around his neck.'' (Stowaway I)The speakers authoritative third-person narrative addresses the Stowaways newly-experienced, palpable shame. [H]e had lost the gift of speech, we are told. His vulnerability and power are held together in those strange violet eyes, which also contain the silent suggestion of the viole[n]t. His crewmates both recognise him and fail to see his true form. Indeed, Stowaway is increasingly concerned with war and violence. When the melancholy traveller in Taking root becomes aware of a terrible conclusion, we are reminded of his culpability:''But he knows that on the horizonhovers a terrible conclusionto all that hes contrived to build.

'' (Taking root) The Levantine of this poem is a particularly sinister incarnation of the figure. As the previous poem, a dramatic monologue entitled The Spice Markets of Antioch, reveals, this speaker is monstrous. His building of a life (a family, more than one business empire) in Taking root is predicated on theft and murder. Gwyns shift to a third-person narrative here allows for both sadness and cynicism as this knowledge of past and subsequent events is realised. This is continued in the following prose poem, which documents the exact moment and place of the terrible conclusion: On the Quay: Smyrna, 13th September 1922. Here, Gwyn details atrocities. Meanwhile, our monstrous Levantine becomes the sole survivor through sheer slipperiness. A Levantine, as Taking root reminds us, is a rootless individual who takes root wherever he finds himself.

Such an individual resembles the figure of the travelling poet, in that he involves himself albeit briefly in the lives of the people and places he encounters on his journey. The central contradiction of travelling seems to be that the traveller either knows himself and is lost, or knows where he is but not exactly who he is. I try to remember who I am in this account, the speaker says in Workers Hostel. This creates a curious distancing, particularly when the travellers body is afflicted by injury and illness (in Hospital Stay, for instance). The sick body is a fragile, cumbersome thing. The traveller must survive it. Paradoxically belonging nowhere and everywhere, the traveller in all his incarnations is a self-conscious, ironic and lonely figure.Overall, Gwyns Stowaway is multifaceted and complex, giving us no easy answers for the questions it raises over the ethical and cultural implications of such geographical adventuring.

Prefaced by quotations from Cavafy, Brodsky, and Mansel, and peppered with intertextual allusions throughout, this collection is steeped in literary heritage as much as history. This creates both familiarity all places and people, all journeys, have fundamental similarities and distance. The figure of the poet, preoccupied as he is with the writing of experience as much as the experiencing of it, is presented as both flawed and as compelling as the other travellers who appear here.Emily BlewittIt is possible to use this review for promotional purposes, but the following acknowledgment should be included: A review from www.gwales.com , with the permission of the Welsh Books Council. Gellir defnyddio''r adolygiad hwn at bwrpas hybu, ond gofynnir i chi gynnwys y gydnabyddiaeth ganlynol: Adolygiad oddi ar www.gwales.

com , trwy ganiatd Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru.