You have to take a deep breath before you dive into this pamphlet, which is actually a single twelve page long poem. Not only because of its length, but because you will need as much oxygen in your brain to cope with digressions, lists, and the unreliable, perhaps even irrational, narrator.

Stannard is adept at keeping a straight face, however weird his poetry gets, and for taking language on long, surreal walks. He’s also good at using repetition and near-repetition, to help structure his work. In this long poem, which starts with the narrator noting that he ‘Sent a picture postcard to Ma “Arrived Safe”‘, this involves variations of the theme of how people see him and similes for how he sleeps,irregular reoccurrences of phrases such as ‘Special Offer!!!’ and a kind of chorus to break up the flow:

Crack of dawn Swam in
ocean Frolicked on sand Sent postcards…