Two brand new and brilliant punk poerty books are publishing just in time for Christmas.
The first is Leon the poet's 'Sometimes I'm The Bull, Sometimes I'm The China Shop', a debut collection that takes a big swing at life in 2024. With poems about pop culture, God, soft plays, fatherhood, suicide, heartbreak, childhood, mental health, machismo, the far right, Russell Brand and Jesus Christ, to mention just a few. Sometimes he’s the Bull, sometimes he’s the China Shop, but all the time his poetry is heartfelt, insightful and highly readable.
The next is 'Daft Punk Verse and a flick of the V's' by Ian Shipley, a superb collection of punk poetry and verse from the streets collated over the course of a creatuve but hard life, about everyday events that will affect us all, captured with a compassionate style that we can all empathise with.
As Ian said himself, "What do you do with creativity when the bands you’ve fronted for 26 years suddenly call it a day?
For me, I simply mutated back to writing outrageous laughable poetry.
This all began in 1981 when I had an appetite for capturing silly situations in rhyme. Over the years, I’ve gradually stockpiled a substantial collection of what I refer to as ‘daft punk verse’.
Unlike poets John Cooper Clarke and Attila the Stockbroker, I never had the nerve to perform my poetries live, choosing instead to put daft puerile rhyme to music with my band the Screaming Willies.
So, while deliberately flicking the vs at the poetry police, here’s my diverse collection of true-to-life punk malarkey, all captured in outlandish verse.
Thirty-nine punk-life poems: fights, drugs, beer and girls plus a few other peculiarities thrown in too. What else would it be?
A reviewer once said of my work: “You sir, are the best worst punk poet ever.” I’ll take that.
Ian 'Weird Records' Shipley passed away in October 2024 during the final days of the collation of this book and we think it's a fitting memorial to the scene he loved and the great man himself.
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