My full-length manuscript, Cairn Almanac, has been shortlisted for the Periplum Open Book Competition 2016, alongside what looks like some other great MSs, from the snippets available to read on the Periplum website… ‘Periplum’ is a word that Ezra Pound seems to have derived from Greek to describe the experience of geographical space not as “correct geography; not as you would find it if you had a geography book and a map”, but “as a coasting sailor would find it.” (ABC of Reading). So it gets the Odysseyian, Mediterranean marine-world of littorals, landings and leave-takings, not bothering with square miles but things in profile, as in Canto 59:
Periplum, not as land looks on a map
But as sea bord [sic] seen by men sailing.
Dan Eltringham 