The title poem of this collection chronicles the eighteenth-century trial of Captain John Bolton for the murder of his apprentice girl, Elizabeth Rainbow, in a small village in the north of England where Paul Munden has spent most of his life. The poem's reflection on the life writing process is complemented by other shadowings, glimpses of strange complicities and dark pastoral musings.

Paul Munden is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of
Canberra, where he is also Program Manager for the International
Poetry Studies Institute (IPSI). He is General Editor of Writing in
Education and Writing in Practice, both published by the National
Association of Writers in Education (NAWE), of which he is Director.
He was reader for Stanley Kubrick from 1988-98. He has worked
as conference poet for the British Council and edited Feeling the
Pressure: Poetry and science of climate change (British Council, 2008).
His collection of poems, Asterisk (Smith/Doorstop, 2011), is based
on Shandy Hall, former home of Laurence Sterne. Analogue/Digital,
a volume of his new and selected poems was published by Smith/
Doorstop in 2015. He has lived in Bulmer, North Yorkshire, for over
30 years, now dividing his time with work in Canberra.