Playing for pride

​This is a collection of the best of about 200+ of my poems 1982 - 2023. I've never academically studied poetry but became intrigued by T S Eliot's combination of traditional, modern and hybrid forms, the sparse pickings of Canadian poetess Miriam Waddington, the bold, philosophical and left-wing politics and phrases of Edward Bond, who was both playwright and poet and with whom I shared a written correspondence for three years and the work of white South African performance poet Leo Aylen. Next, I came under the influence of home-grown, British post-punk 'performance poets' like Attila the Stockbroker, Nick Toczek, Joolz Denby, Benjamin Zephenia and Steven 'Seething' Wells. Relatively simple rhyme schemes, explicit imagery, socially-inspired and often politically-motivated agendas against ignorance, the Establishment, royalty, classism, alcoholism, complacency, right-wingers, war, racism, drub abuse, homophobia, poverty and exploitation. Cultural revolutions come in waves, some of us surf them and some watch and listen. Punk-era poets were called 'ranters' rather than 'poets' and produced 'rants' not 'poems'. Spreading poems by the printed word was done via 'fanzines' – underground, photocopied, independent, low-budget, hand-made, DIY magazines made with felt pens, scissors, old newspapers and a tube of Pritt - that went hand-in-hand with left-wing and anarchist post-punk politics.The title reflects a modest pride in writing them and their value to others.