My funny little Linkedin poem in honour of UK National Poetry Day. It riffs on this fad of some posters in an effort to gain more views have taken on this elongated form of post particularly suited to a mobile phone.

Better is Rishi Dastidar's (I love I can tell it's written in Notes on a phone)

The 4 books of poetry I’ve last read are Rishi Dastidar (Ticker Tape) JH Prynne, Rebecca Bird (through Rishi), and CD Wright (One with Others).  If you fancy it, check them out.

JH Prynne to my lay mind is one of the most important British poets of the last 50 years. The CD Wright book One With Others is extraordinary (I will try a post on it some time, I can't even think to describe it in a few words). There’s a large part of me which is sad we read so few poets. That’s the way of the world, I guess.

More on Prynne here (I sat next to him and his orange tie once).  Rishi's book here. Rebecca Bird's site here.  

One With Others: "Investigative journalism is the poet's realm when C.D. Wright returns to her native Arkansas and examines an explosive incident from the Civil Rights movement. Wright interweaves oral histories, hymns, lists, newspaper accounts, and personal memories—especially those of her incandescent mentor, Mrs. Vititow—with the voices of witnesses, neighbors, police, activists, and black students who were rounded up and detained in an empty public swimming pool. This history leaps howling off the page."  New Yorker article here.

I owe a post of Thanks to Forrest Gander (who like Gideon Lester was very influential to me), so there's another post in the back log.