The newest poetry assortment from John Cooper Clarke, AKA the Bard of Salford, What comes with themes together with chlamydia, necrophilia, Elvis, the “distress soup” of rolling information, the late racing commentator Peter O’Sullevan, Boxing Day bubble and squeak and the delights of Manchester’s Curry Mile – “Drunk chicks blow chunks out the again of a stretch / Staccato heels a-clatter”.
These poems are classic Clarke: filled with wordplay and eccentric humour and threaded with sharp social commentary. Blue Collar Wallah is a portrait of a “heteronormative handyman” who’s a “two meat and one veg man, potatoes by no means kale”, and who finds himself out of step with up to date values; Clean Operetta depicts the youth tribe as soon as often known as casuals, discernible by their Farah slacks and slip-on footwear – “Neat neat neat neat neat / Please don’t make me repeat”.
Together with vogue, Clarke has a eager eye for all times’s easy pleasures: Ode to the Coast extols: “A pleasant cuppa splosh and a spherical of toast / A cursory look on the morning publish / A pointless stroll alongside the coast.” Sheffield is a hymn to the town of metal that begat “Richard Hawley on the nook / The Cockers each Jarvis and Joe.”
Manchester-born Clarke is finest often known as a spoken-word performer who rose to fame on the punk scene and who has lengthy been attuned to phrases and their rhythmic sounds. What’s subsequently finest heard in audio and narrated by its creator. Clarke’s unmistakable supply – all elongated vowel sounds and amused disdain – elevates the verse to the realms of excessive artwork.
Additional listening:
A Very Non-public Faculty
Charles Spencer, William Collins, 7hr 57min
The ninth Earl Spencer, brother of Diana, Princess of Wales, narrates his memoir documenting the abuse suffered by him and plenty of others throughout his 5 years of boarding faculty.
after e-newsletter promotion
The Coloration Purple
Alice Walker, Audible Studios, 8hr 7min
The Orange is the New Black actor Samira Wiley narrates this landmark novel about Celie, a younger Black woman from Georgia struggling beneath male tyranny and abuse.
