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| baby, i'm ready to go |
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Full blurb:
baby, i’m ready to go is a break-the-rules collection of poems that’s not afraid to mess with convention. It’s a poetry book that mixes the radical with the traditional - the anarchy of dialect and free verse, with the conformity of rhyme and traditional poetic forms. And that’s not the only thing that sets this collection apart. baby, i’m ready to go achieves that rarest of things, intimacy with the reader. From the teaser first lines at the start, to the closing interview with the writer by various punk bands, this is a book that wants to get close to you, wants to speak to you. And it does. Through the poems of course, and through the background notes at the end of the book as well. Like the banter between songs at a gig or Cliffs Notes designed to make you fail the exam – the notes provide a rare insight into the writer’s thinking.
baby, i’m ready to go takes us to the extremes of the M1, from the two-up-two-downs of the writer’s native Yorkshire, to the urban Masai Mara of inner-city London via a town called Me, population one. A knowing, edgy collection, baby, i’m ready to go shows us the wonderful and funny in the weird, banal and ugly. It reminds us of the cruelty and sadness that is life and other people.
So, if you like your poems florid, saccharine and BBC Poetry Season-approved, baby, i’m ready to go ain’t for you. Best try some dead poet with a title, or your nearest branch of Clinton Cards. If, however, you prefer your poetry alive and well and living in the real world, beg, steal, borrow… or preferably buy this book. baby, i’m ready to go - one for all you lovers, loners, heart breakers and jimmy saville worshippers out there. POETRY IS DEAD. LONG LIVE POETRY!
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First page first lines:
From 'nothing'
There is nothing between them
They're wearing skin
They're wearing air
They're wearing a dream
Wearing a nightmare
They're wearing each other
They're wearing nothing
There is nothing between them
A nothing that's the start of everything
Or the start of the end...
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Category: Poetry collection
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Author: Melissa Mann
Melissa Mann is a wordsmith, head honcho of litzine Beat the Dust, BTD TV and Beat the Dust Bookshop, and lead singer of the legendary punk folk band The Holy Whores. Okay, well the first few are true at least; the latter is just a figment of her imagination. Adventurous types wanting to explore Melissa's imagination should head due north and check out her website pages, equipped with all-terrain boots and a torch. Her work has been widely published on bus shelters and public conveniences, as well as anthologies and literary publications, including 3:AM Magazine, Dogmatika, The Laura Hird Showcase, Zygote in My Coffee, Succour magazine, Radgepacket – Tales from the Inner Cities, and The Loose Canon.
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Publisher: Grievous Jones Press
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Reviews:
"In turn freewheeling and funny and dark and insightful, Melissa Mann's poems surge with energy. In these works, witty wordplay, pop culture references and the minutiae of everyday existence vie for space in a collection that sees the quietly desperate dreams and repressed desires of British life, sliced open and laid bare on the page’s slab. Like Morrissey with tits. And balls." -- Ben Myers, author and journalist.
“Melissa Mann’s gorgeous collection of poems is about love, and the forlorn people of the world, and the little moments of despair that eventually drive us insane. which is to say that it’s a great book full of brilliant gems about life itself. it’s beautiful and it’s profound and you have to read it. and baby, she’s ready to go.” -- Mark SaFranko, author of Hating Olivia and Lounge Lizard.
“Concise, precise and full of vice; Melissa Mann's poetry focuses on isolation and a need to belong in today's London, a city full of people making an 'ome from home, some succeeding, many not. The poems are terse, to the point and well distilled, and you'll find 'em lamenting their lot in pubs across town.” -- Tim Wells, poet, author of Rougher Yet and Boys’ Night Out In The Afternoon, bon viveur and gout sufferer.
"...almost perfectly formed poems of love and its multi-layered lessons...Ms Mann can turn out one immaculate line after another - nowhere is a case in point, worth the cover price alone, death scene too, closest to classic poetic form, subtle, obtuse and devastating, in little more than a single sentence...The love poems read like conversations and the observational poems like the descriptive sections in between, adding up to a book which reads like a novel...There is an important voice coming up through the cracks here – like a female Blake, Ms Mann wanders the rotten streets of London (and other grim towns) and aches through her characters – homeless wench, past-it tart, would-be train platform jumper, Loo Attendant of the Year, zimmer framed octogenarian… women fearing ageing or already aged and done." -- Marek Kazmierski at 3:AM Magazine.
"...an engaging, entertaining and often very funny read... Mann’s poems are witty and wily and have a ring and a rhythm to them. Her words tumble out and some of the snappy staccato bursts sound like lyrics awaiting music. From tales of Yorkshire youth to London letdowns, from broken hearts to Jimmy Saville, from bus stops to public conveniences, these are our everyday trials and tribulations told without exaggeration or braggado." -- Mark Raison at the home of Beatnik Modernism, Monkey Picks.
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| Book code: BTD027 |
| Price: £ 7.00 |
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