PETER PHILPOTT

IN THE PRESENT HISTORIC TENSE
A Serial Poem of the West


Alcmaeon says that men die because they cannot attach the beginning to the end – a clever saying if you take it to have been meant loosely and do not try to make it precise.


The author was born in Martock, in the South of Somerset, in 1949, and moved to Minehead, on the coast, in 1963, going to University in 1967, and caught up with job, house and marriage elsewhere by 1973. He does, though, often return to the West Country. This poem was written partly in Bishops Stortford, and partly in and around Minehead, and also Dartington in South Devon, 1992-1993.

Some explanations as to places etc are given in hypertext form – try putting the cursor over titles or quotations. You will find some poems, supplementary to the main sequence, open on screen in separate windows, prompted by a link to "supplementary poem". To exit from these, close the window, and click onto the next poem.


Minehead from the beach