Fractured Flights

Fractured Flights is a tripartite collection, yet very much a whole. The first section presents an imagined, though well-documented, account of the artistic relationship between the painter, Edgar Degas, and Mademoiselle LaLa, a famous trapeze artiste at the Cirque Fernando towards the end of the nineteenth century. The relevant sketch-books show a master-draughtsman at work - complemented by colour notations, close details of the Cirque's architecture, and pencil and pastel drawings of LaLa herself in flight. The second section is a clutch of poems about the owl, both in her reality and in the myths and legends that surround her, while the final section looks at other types of 'fractured' flight - those not sought, often unwelcome and usually life-changing in some way.