Reviews I Left no Footsteps Behind Me "Being approched by Barry to write a review about his latest work "I left no footsteps behind me", I felt honoured. Not only because I like the old hippie, but also 'cause I admire his work. He made sure I got what I wanted when 130 pages ticked out of my printer, he had set me up, told me nothing about a 130 pages. Although I knew parts of the work already it took me a while to read all of it, which is only due to the diversity and intensity of the work. Reading these words too fast would be a waste, although one feels the urge to devour them. One has to take its time for great poetry and great poetry I got. Of a kind that is heartfelt and lived through, still lives and thrives in the beating pulse of the poet. "I left no footsteps behind me" truly is more than just another book full of poetry. It is the story of a man's desire, and his attraction to all that shimmers and shines in darker zones behind glass doors. To what is born, breeds and dies on different edges of different worlds. And the statement that sometimes the edge is not enough, that sometimes we have to tumble over and fall down, right down through the nets of reality, and visit hidden places that go beyond imagination. He travels with pimps, whore's and junkies, chic ladies & swell suits, Anarchists and fakers, backpackers and takers, smokers and jokers, and some many more of those "extraordinaire" that inhabit the vast plains of desperation and hope, which stretch out under the cracks of society. He wanders and wonders in Amsterdam, Antwerp, Calcutta and Bangkok. Meets new strangers on every corner, in split seconds that elapse in an un-chronological order. We see through his eyes and meet all those that linger in lust of concrete jungle or the beauty of Asian serene madness. We taste the chillum through his mouth, the endless line of joints and women. We feel the pussy of those women, which he must have all loved. We become aware of all the beauty and filth that moves the poet. This is what Barry Fitton does to us with "I left no footsteps behind me"." Gijs ter Haar. "Barry Fitton; had he been born a few years earlier would have been right in there with Ginsberg, Kerouac, Burroughs, Corso, Joans, and Lennon-the Beats, because he's a kindred soul and Lennon because he's a musician. Poems like Talking Meloe Melo Blues and Remembrance Day nearly set themselves to music. His poetry is gutsy, sexy, powerful with mystic humanitarianism.(Let us not also require that it be totally rational in a crazy world!) In fact, his is a very rational poetry, demanding better of our misguided leaders, readers,and war makers. What's most important, I think, is that his work crosses not only aesthetic borders but those that have kept us from understanding and embracing half the world or more. In an age of parochial and introverted poetry he is a true internationalist, much-needed." David Ray. "Barry Fitton writes about real places and people with an easy accessible style and a simplicity which has earned him the soubrette of "Beat Writer". He often rejects this label perhaps believing that it is dated but, as his latest collection of poems from his domicile in Amsterdam, I Left No Footsteps Behind Me, proves not only is he a Beat writer but that he is a very fine beat writer and more importantly a writer who deals with contemporary subjects in a modern style." "He sets out his objective in the verse laid PROLOGUE:" This is not just about me, its about a way of life that does not exist anymore, that cannot exist because of state of the world that we live in. there is no longer the trust, the feeling of safety when you travel, the freedom to just go where you wanted to is no longer there, so many restrictions due to wars, politics etc. in one way it's a travel book in another it's a collection of snapshots "The collection works to fulfill Fitton's objective, and reading through the poems gives the impression of viewing incidents and events through his eyes and being made party to them. Smoking grass which is legally obtained in coffee houses in Amsterdam figures prominently in these poems as he says in A MODERN ODYSSEY" He moved on into the night forever searching he tried pipes & bongs vaporizers and many, many different types of joints They were hand rolled machine rolled factory rolled sweatshop rolled in the back streets of Calcutta of Bangkok of Izmir And countless other strange & Wonderfilled places around the globe & Jungles of Africa "From travellers on their way to India who don't make it, to street philosophers who hand you a bag of life with a warning. In CANDY MAN he opens the gift of a bag of life which had been given with a warning, he writes;" inside all I saw was a gilded mirror the writing on it said This way to oblivion and I knew it did not lie "There is a melancholy about these poems which obviously represent a reassessment of his life but at the same time there is a feeling that he would have it no other way." I Left No Footsteps Behind Me - Hole Books. back