The process of developing ‘Changing Carriages at Birmingham New Street’, my final poetry book proved a tricky process in contrast to all the poetry books I wrote where sometimes I would write poems about places I barely knew, or in some cases didn’t know atall.

In this case, the next poem I am sharing from the book, I had been to twice but the first involved sitting down in an airport very bored for 8 hours and the second time getting very, very drunk which I am amazed to this very day I got away with it, let alone actually allowed on the plane.

The trick with this poem which is an important theme throughout the full of this book is how my two characters (one of whose names is never revealed)’s story is told in almost letter-like form by the male narrator looking back at segments in the story of how his friendship developed with a woman called Sarah often in various cities up and down the United Kingdom and sometimes beyond.

Three visits to Paris is one of my favourite pieces in this book as I look at three different visits to Paris and how the male narrator changed over three different visits spread out over ten years.

The poem can be read on my substack page - https://andyn.substack.com/p/three-visits-to-paris-ten-years-apart