The Relativity of Journeys

About the Book

The thesis of The Relativity of Journeys is that travel is always relative to the starting point, 'home', and our impressions of places are coloured by this 'psychic relativity'. In the form of condensed anecdotes from childhood in England, then through immigration to the Maritimes, we follow the author on his trips to Watergate's Washington and Khomeini's Iran, Madrid at the time of Franco's death, as well as on journeys in North Africa, the Middle East, South America, Europe and the Caribbean. Short vignettes in free verse with accompanying photographs, give us an intimate glimpse of personal reactions to places and events through those incidents, often humorous, sometimes raunchy, which remain in one's mind long after a journey is over. The book looks back in nostalgia to the 1970s and 1980s, when such carefree travels seemed to bring us closer the brotherhood of man, unaffected by the tragic events of September 2001 and their likely long-term consequences.

About the Author

Stanley Lowther (a pseudonym), believes the reader can learn much about him from his poems, as they are sure to present an accurate self-portrait, starting from childhood to the present. Prosaically, it emerges that the author is a marine biologist, interested in fisheries, was an immigrant from the UK to Canada, has worked as an advisor in national and international negotiations on maritime affairs, and since then has travelled substantially in various parts of the world. Through careful reading however, many other deductions can be made about his character and interests, since this is in one sense a brief story of his life, and needs no further description.