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| Load the Guns |
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Full blurb:
The confederate companion to Ridgwell’s first chapbook of poetry, the highly acclaimed ‘Where are the Rebels?’ is out now. In ‘Load the Guns’, Ridgwell drags the reader down into the underbelly of society to reveal the cracked modern world in all its ruined beauty.
The reader encounters the beat apartments and alcohol-drenched streets of London, Kings Cross, Sydney and a midnight Mexican beach, as Ridgwell continues his doomed search for the mythical lost elation. There are paeans to Bonnie & Clyde, ex-lovers, hedonism, sex, booze, near-death experiences, beauty, loneliness, and wasted life blues.
'Load the Guns' is required reading for lovers of underground and anti-mainstream poetry, as well as isolationists, offbeats, non-conformists, night-crawlers, dandies, hippies, boozers, junkies, hobos, sweethearts, young lovers, grievous angels, and misfit outsiders all over the world.
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First page first lines:
From the poem Load the Guns:
When the dark is day
And the sun shines nevermore
And a lone bugler
Appears at the end of the street
Playing a melancholy last call
That is the time
To load the guns
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Category: Poetry collection
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Author: Joseph Ridgwell
Joseph Ridgwell grew up in the East End of London and left school with few qualifications. He then embarked on a succession of menial jobs. After being stabbed in a bar brawl he decided it was time to leave the country and promptly travelled the world. He stayed in Australia for five years living mostly in the red-light district of Kings Cross, Sydney until he became an illegal immigrant. To avoid imprisonment and deportation Joe then went to Thailand and bought a share in the world's smallest bar, the now defunct Barcelona Bar. After fleeing Thailand with a tail between his legs he finally returned to London where he lives and writes to this day. His novel Last Days of the Cross is due out on Grievous Jones Press in September 09.
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Publisher: Blackheath Books
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Reviews:
‘Load the Guns has got ever other pome book out there skinned and even if my business hasen't been strictly legal it don't hurt eny thing to tell you what a fine collection you got in this here chap.’ – Clyde Barrow
‘You know what, when it started out, I thought it was really goin' somewhere. But this is it. It’s just goin', huh? Ha – I’m just horsin’ around. You’re good! As the flowers are all made sweeter by the sunshine and the dew, so this old world is made brighter by the poems of folks like you.’ – Bonnie Parker
‘…if ‘Where Are The Rebels?’ lined the targets against the wall, ‘Load The Guns’ blows their heads clean off. In the way John Lee Hooker can say more by banging a rhythm on a battered guitar than the combined effort of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Joe Ridgwell can capture more in a few direct, uncompromising lines than all the flowery metaphor and allegory of [dead poets like] Lords Whatnot, Whoever and Whocares put together.’- Monkey Picks
‘Joe Ridgwell is a man to watch. He's stacked with talent.’ - Mark SaFranko author of ‘Hating Olivia’ and ‘Lounge Lizard’
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| Book code: BTD025 |
| Price: £ 5.00 |
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