While You Were Approaching the Spectacle But Before You Were Transformed by It

LYTTON SMITH’s debut collection, The All-Purpose Magical Tent won the Nightboat Poetry Books Poetry Prize and was published in 2008. He lives and teaches teaches English and creative writing at Plymouth University.

• Travel Narrative • Of the Kingdom Which Counterweights Civilization • Friendship as a Rhetoric of Retreating Past Borders • Begins the Civil War • A Turned Page as the Measure of Suspense • By means of a mountain path or a merchant new-arrived or a fragmented map in a pawnbroker’s: new travels, tells of a country through which goods might be easily moved • International Natural Resources • First of the Invasions • Encounter with Elephants • The Spectacle (I) • Some Corner of a Foreign Field • Trade Winds, Trade Routes • Civil War • Summer in the Delta • Refraction • Civil War (Forgotten) • Native Characteristics Approved • Bringing Violins, Games, and Bibles to Coastal Areas • The Spectacle (II) • River Insurgence • Barefoot Across the Floor of the Pagoda • ‘If’ by Rudyard Kipling • Independence Day • General H - Flees the Abode of Kings • Patriotism Does Not Doubt for National Joy • Civil War • The Spectacle (III) • Moonlight at the Pagoda • The Spectacle (IV) • Silk First Reaches the City’s Markets • Sweet and Fitting • Telescopic Philanthropy • Public Sites Are For Gatherings (Of Less Than Five) • House Arrest • Refugee Blues • In the International News Headlines • Civil War as the Longest Uninterrupted in World History (Forgotten) • Monsoon Deluge • As [They] Lay Dying • On Empathy • The Spectacle (V) • International Disaster Relief Fund • Civil War • Resettling the Capital City • The Spectacle (VI) • As the Teak Forests Move • We Are Here To Protect Even By Necessary Imposition • Where Were You In This? • By means of a military state and the governmental control of goods, carbon resources, travel visas, food, and labour; in the wake of historical occupations by and upon the national construct; through the resituation of villagers, villages, and language; offering momentary promises of alternative behavior; because it would be wrong to tell authority that its policies have failed; hamstrung by sanctions (except those related to global concerns such as rare wood, oil, pipelines, etc; dismayed by the mis-perception of people-minded rule, we have reached this stage of national happiness: