ABSTRACT
In Ciaran Carson's poetry, as John Goodby notes, '[t]he persona is almost invariably that of a pedestrian'. Indeed, Goodby's findings for Carson offer a concise summation of the chief interests of this chapter: Iain Sinclair's encounter with the world is undoubtedly that of the pedestrian, and the texts that result from that encounter certainly work to articulate the specificity of the pedestrian's perspective in their descriptive aesthetics and narrative style. It argues that Sinclair's writing loosens narrative bounds to find a representational form that navigates between exploratory and exploitative modes of engagement and is capable of dramatizing the experience of place. Sinclair's writing is predicated on the discoveries arising out of walking, but also simultaneously engages in the creation of place out of an agenda drawn from textual sources. The chapter contends that representation and practice coalesce in Sinclair's texts in the approaches to walking that they exemplify.
