Woke Up This Morning (Paperback)

Brian Docherty

ISBN 10: 0957172222 / ISBN 13: 9780957172227

Published by Smokestack Books, Middlesborough, 2012

About this Item

Paperback. Woke up this Morning is a hitch-hiker's guide to cultural alienation, from Glasgow to London to San Francisco and back again.Brian Docherty grew up in Scotland in the 1960s listening to Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon on the radio, hitched across Europe in the 1970s, and then followed the Vikings West to Vinland in North America, that green utopia 'where everything seemed possible', only to find himself caught in 'the blizzard of history'. The result is a series of studies in estrangement and exile, real and imagined: Stanley Spencer in Cookham, Dracula in Whitby, Gauguin on Tahiti, Otis Redding sitting on the dock of the Bay.Brian Docherty was born in Glasgow in 1953, and educated at Middlesex Polytechnic, the University of Essex, London University and St Mary's University College. He has worked as a civil servant, hospital storeman, market trader, Creative Writing tutor and lecturer. His first two books Armchair Theatre (1999) and Desk with a View (2008) were both published by Hearing Eye. He has co-edited several Macmillan anthologies, most recently British Poetry from the 1950s to the 1990s: Politics and Art (1997). He lives in north London. Brian Docherty is a resident alien. He grew up in Scotland in the 1960s listening to Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon on the radio, hitched across Europe in the 1970s to an FM soundtrack, and followed the Vikings West to Vinland, that green utopia 'where everything seemed possible', only to find himself caught in 'the blizzard of history'. Woke up thi Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9780957172227

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Woke Up This Morning (Paperback)
• Publisher: Smokestack Books, Middlesborough
• Publication Date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0957172222
• ISBN 13: 9780957172227
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

Brian Docherty is a resident alien. He grew up in Scotland in the 1960s listening to Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon on the radio, hitched across Europe in the 1970s to an FM soundtrack, and followed the Vikings West to Vinland, that green utopia 'where everything seemed possible', only to find himself caught in 'the blizzard of history'. Woke up this Morning is an index of possibilities, a hitch-hiker's guide to cultural alienation and appropriation, from Glasgow to San Francisco and back. It is a book about real and imagined journeys to other worlds that always seem less alien than our own, a series of studies in estrangement and exile - Stanley Spencer in Cookham, Dracula in Whitby, Gauguin on Tahiti, Otis Redding sitting on the dock of the Bay. Listen carefully and somewhere on the radio-dial between the Voice of America and Radio Landlady, you can still hear the music of a place called home, where everyone 'is nostalgic for different things', and each New World can still be imagined with 'wild surmise'.