Tôpher Mills

A revealing book full of clever, funny poems that often use Polari, the secret language used when homosexuality was a crime. There’s an enthusiastic delight in the poets use of these linguistically intriguing words. Jeremy Dixon is not just commemorating Polari but reclaiming and celebrating it.

Self praise is no recommendation!

Absolutely loved this. I ran a poetry press for years and this brought all the good bits back to me.

Thatcher grew up on a farm in Pennsylvania. We’re taken into the heart of that world, filled with a strong mother, hard work, young love, horses, bronco riding women and the harsh beauty of the wild. An extraordinary book that captivates with passion, honesty and whip crack intensity.

Taliesin, so little is known about this sixth century bard, this book will undoubtedly be the classic work on him, his poetry and his huge influence on literature. The introduction is brilliant . One of the first poets of ancient Britain we know of so this is where it starts for us.

1995: Hay Festival. Left to right, Paul Muldoon, Glyn Maxwell, Russell Celyn Jones, Simon Armitage, Jo Shapcott, Alison (one of Simon’s many wives) and the ever dapper (not the up and saucer) Hugo Williams. When we were all young and exciting poets!

Astronomy???

It’s a cynical ploy to blow smoke up his orange arse!

30 inside, who are you kidding? More like 12!

Passionate, scathing, rigorous and woefully funny. This book is some of the best writing about Welsh politics and the wider world of political mayhem, that I have encountered. Highly readable I felt angry, sad and often dumbfounded. I got though it because I often found myself laughing out loud.

Intriguing, enthralling and intellectually abrasive, these poems range across the European and African continents, mixing literary sensibilities with an exhilarating and surrealist panache. This is a powerful and unique poet.

I have often found this to be very true. It also works for poems (first lines or verses) and novels (sometimes the whole first chapter isn’t as good as the second).

Chandler stated that whenever he wrote a story he would go back to the first paragraph and cut it. Because once you’ve made a start, always an effort, you then relax and that’s when the real writing begins.

These six novels have been an absolute joy and I’ve only got one more to go and then his collected stories. I’ll be sorry to finish them in a strange kind of bookish mourning.

Just finished ‘The Long Goodbye’, the longest of Chandler’s great novels which I have been delightfully wallowing in one after the other. I love the photo on this one; ‘Arrested for Bribing Basketball Players’ by the great Weegee, 1942. Such classic hoodlum types that Marlowe would have encountered.

Two great books of working life arrived today from Smokestack. Fred Voss poems of working in machine shops in America have become classics and Martin Hayes is almost his alter-ego in minimum wage, fag end Britain. A perfect combo for Christmas!

So this year I saw Martin Figura reading his poems with a certain gentle panache and now I’ve polished off two of his books and they are my kind of poetry, deft, passionate and sardonic humour. I’ll definitely be reading more. Bloody marvellous!

64. I have included a few I tried very hard to get through but just couldn’t (Atlas Shrugged for instance).

Years ago my dad asked me to get a book; ‘it’s called The Colour of Magic’. ‘Who’s the author?’ ‘Don’t know.’ I had to go into town to a bookshop and ask. I read it quickly then gave it to my dad, who read it to his grandchildren. We’ve all been Pratchett fans since then. This is a marvellous book.

My mum died in 2022 and this book captures that grief profoundly. It’s anger, confusion, sadness and humour etc. One long poem called ‘Arrival’ about being in your parent’s home after they’re death is a tour de force that is stunningly good.

Event location changed to The Packet, the oldest pub in Cardiff Bay (or the Docks as it is known to some of us), a great place.

There’s definitely something fishy about this post?

Well then the rules need to be changed or a new award made to make good the inadequacy of the rules in these areas.

They didn’t appear on the final award ballot! That means they could be nominated next year. Though that isn’t what I meant by ghost awards. Simply it could be a retroactive award given to those who were excluded for reasons at the time, corruption, censorship etc., that are now unacceptable

Excellent summation. On the asterisk notion; couldn’t there be some kind of ghost Hugo award given to Kuang, Gaiman et al., at the next or later convention?

Does this cover repulse you?
Never mind all the shortlisted nonsense, this is a book of wonders, I’ve read and re-read some of these poems rapturously, and yet many will be put off by the cover, the innate fear of creepy crawlies!

They should be able to tell you but they often don’t. You do tend to wonder if they’re not telling you to protect you or themselves!

Many years ago I performed at the Casablanca Club and now I’ll be at the Casablanca Cafe, with the brilliant Durre Shahwar. These are such great nights I’m lucky to be asked. I’ll be doing some new stuff too!

This is Australia and they get $46 per DAY Jobseeker’s Allowance. In the UK the unemployed get £84 per week. How the hell are UK unemployed supposed to survive?

I believe it just shortcrust pastry, which is what pies and pastries should have and not all that flaky puff pastry nonsense!