All at sea and off the rails


Tunisian-born Patrick McGuinness, who lectures in French at Oxford, is preoccupied by departures in his collection Jilted City.  Railway stations recur as places where a life might go forwards or backwards.  In 'Bouillon', a defunct station where McGuinness's grandfather worked serves as a prompt for grief.  That poem is part of a series called 'Correspondances', a pun on the French word for transport connections, as well as a nod to Baudelaire.  McGuinness scripts erudite parts for other grands hommes - Flaubert, Brel - making witty use of an all-too-often nostalgic heritage.