50 Numbered/signed copies

£*** plus shipping

*** pages. Pinched Crown format, approx. 7”/175mm wide, 10”/250mm tall. Handbound at the Tangerine workshop with acid-free boards, conservation glue and hemp cord; foil embossed front cover artwork; colour title page. ISBN: 978-1-***

Binding spec tbc

SIGNED BY DAVID KEENAN

SOME COMMENTS ON IN THE ENEMY CAMP (2015)

“Sentences flow over lines and across stanzas, raising questions while dragging you ever onward through squalid yet stunning tales; always with rhythm, rarely rhyme. For many who approach this outstanding collection, the brew may prove too strong.”
— Alan Bett, The Skinny

“…a brilliant gathering of poems. It deserves a wide audience.”
— Ian Seed, Stride

“There are poems here that read like Denis Johnson, poems full of beauty, poems full of sass and wisdom, poems that examine shortcomings as well as any poem Ray Carver ever wrote, poems about Korea, jail, drugs, love, the universe, poems that are reflective, keen, poems that turn a stern eye on themselves.”
— Bookmunch

“Wantling’s casual mastery of technique hoodwinks the reader. Many of the poems employ rhyme and half-rhyme but Wantling’s attention to form is hidden in the dark intimacy of his verse.”
— The Manchester Review

William Wantling (1933-74) was a veteran of the Korean War and a heroin addict who spent five and a half years in San Quentin Prison, where he first taught himself to write. Upon his release in 1963, under the G.I.Bill, he entered higher education, obtaining a BA and MA in English Literature. A contemporary of Charles Bukowski – with whom he had an unusual and ultimately destructive friendship – Wantling was widely published in the vibrant US poetry scene of the 1960s and 70s, including an appearance in the twelfth edition of the prestigious Penguin Modern Poets series. Whilst maintaining a high profile in the independent press scene, important literary figures such as Edward Lucie-Smith, Walter Lowenfels and Cyril Connolly regularly supported and promoted his work. Christopher Logue, writing in the Times Literary Supplement in December 1967, declared Wantling’s collection The Awakening his recommended book of the year. Wantling was a university lecturer when he died of heart failure on May 2nd 1974, aged 40 years.

David Keenan biography tbc