GORDON PARSONS appreciates fine performances and a feel for ambiguity, but misses the music of the dialogue
Latest editorial
Tim Wells - My Friends, The Poets
Well Versed is edited by Jody Porter
DOUGLAS FIELD relishes the hard-boiled language, satire and humour of the third and last of the Harlem trilogy
STEPHANIE BROWN draws attention to the hidden labour of the female embroiderers, and how a 19th century replica made no such error
MIK SABIERS revels in a band that ploughs an idiosyncratic furrow of expletive laden, guitar-driven alt rock
ANDY HEDGECOCK, MARIA DUARTE and ANGUS REID review Synthetic Sincerity, Our Hero, Balthazar, Heartstopper Forever, and A Year In London
The bard invites readers to a gig, raps for Clacton, and lays out the Burnham-Hurzeler conundrum
RON JACOBS recommends an important book that enhances the oppositional theories put forth by Fanon and, in doing so, remakes psychology itself
My Friends, The Poets
Tim Wells
My local knows I write. Every proper pub has its share of characters;
the bloke shot by the Taliban, the girl who fell asleep having sex in the toilet.
We’re not the chattering classes, more gossip and dirty jokes.
Cockney, Yiddische, Gammon and Yard is the well I dip my pen in.
We like a turn of phrase, an inventive curse, when somebody says nothing
but everything. The up-themself and the bore we’ve no time for,
yet there’s a true appreciation for the form. I’m often asked about poets,
Luke Kennard, Ian Duhig, Clare Pollard… do I know them? What are they like?
The library takes a hit, and there’s a second appreciative read
when my reply is, “you’d love ‘em, they’re a scumbag just like us.”
Similar stories
by Mike Jenkins
Ron's rages are sincere and — according to his wife — healthily cathartic. But can these splenetic outbursts loosen the grip of capitalism at its most monstrous?
by Rosie Jackson
by Clare Evans