In several poems, the apparition draws attention to Pearson’s critical reception as a poet. His self-deprecation, however, threads a precarious line between black humour and self-indulgence, as in the poem ‘His Author’: ‘I’m not the twin of whom I come from. / My author used to think himself a poet / […] I know better, being his creation. / He doesn’t have the powers he thinks he has.’ Pearson oscillates between celebrating and mourning the apparition’s position as excavator and witness to what lingers at the margin’s edge.

Towards the end of the collection, poems address questions of mortality. The tone is sad and melancholy, which is appropriate given the passing of Pearson’s contemporaries Patrick Alexander and Shelton Lea. The clarity of consciousness behind such pieces as ‘His Autopsy’, ‘His Funeral Oration’, ‘His Crossing Over’, ‘His Epitaph’ and ‘His Literary Remains’ imparts a shiver. But the spirit is greater than the flesh, as suggested by the lovely line: ‘A surface is the skin of what’s inside.’ The disquieting focus of The Apparition At Large is of someone casting a warm, clear eye – Pearson could never be cold – over the actions and achievements of his life, including his considerable legacy as a poetry publisher and practitioner.

At times, the use of traditional forms such as iambic metre and rhyme compromised this reader’s negotiation of the text. That said, the poet’s pleasure in the language games of riddling and punning were a delight.