Syntax is to word order as melody is to note order. Peal explores the analogy of melody and syntax by applying the methods of bell change ringing to rows of words: poetic lines. Each individual poem begins with a line of four to nine nonrepeating words. That line is then permuted according to one of the methods, resulting in anywhere from 12 to 240 unique variations. By convention, the word corresponding to the heaviest working bell is coloured blue (the “blue line”) and the word corresponding to the treble or highest-pitched bell is coloured red. The starting lines—all quotations—form the cento that opens the book, where their inflections evoke thematic relationships. Their permutations create distinctive visual patterns as well as frequent semantic surprises. The methods have been chosen with an eye to the associations created by juxtaposing their names with the corresponding starting lines. 144pp 235 x 170mm, casebound with headbands, printed three-colour offset. Typography by Colin Sackett, and perhaps one of the most elaborate of Coracle productions. 300 copies