{"product_id":"distance-run","title":"Distance Run","description":"\u003cp\u003eSimon Beechinor went to sea at sixteen and spent forty-five years in the shipping industry: first as a merchant seaman, and later as a shipping executive working in Papua New Guinea, Hong Kong, and the City of London. \u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Distance Run\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e is what that life produced. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA collection of mostly prose poems, it traces a journey from an English childhood through the decline of British shipping to post-colonial Papua New Guinea, Hong Kong, the City of London, and the more intimate terrain of family life. The collection speaks in a register of unflinching and often amusing observation rarely heard in contemporary poetry. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThese poems move between the documentary and the imagined, between elegy and comedy, between the ship''s deck, the boardroom, and the family kitchen. Alongside the autobiographical works are a number of imaginative poems that explore the boundary between memory and invention. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOccasionally profane and often surprising, these poems speak from a world of work, family, and lives lived far from the literary centre.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57507614654837,"sku":"9781806345687","price":8.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781806345687.jpg?v=1787042623","url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/products\/distance-run","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}