Write Lion
The glut of TV Cookery programs jamming our channels has provoked a response from one of our forum poets, while Derrick Buttress reminds us that finding a job (and keeping it) has never been easy. And as for those people who pretend they are from somewhere else and change the way they say bath - well they had it coming! If you’ve got any wordy needs, please contact books@leftlion.co.uk or visit leftlion.co.uk/writelion
Beth
Growing Pains
by Derrick Buttress I’m singing in clover until they hit me with the bill for my youthful, histrionic years of tantrums and defiance. Now comes the end of happiness, the innocent, juvenile diversions. On my last day as a hooligan I’m scrumping fruit to pelt my hare-brained pals. Then Monday slaps me in the face and I’m pounding the streets scared stiff and searching for a job that pays more than peanuts. By Friday I’m a factory hand learning to feed a machine that eats fingers. I’m a citizen now, but don’t know the rules. I can’t stop feeling like a kid, start a fire in the boiler room, burn out the motor on the rickety hoist, a skill in calamity picked up after years of studying The Beano. Sacked, and back on the street, I leg it for the darker side of town. Alone and in strange rooms I try to figure out the transitory nature of filial love, the truth of who owes what to whom, the debt that no-one ever pays.
by Alastair Catteral You look like The still centre Of a hurricane A calm Typhoon And although You have most likely Forgotten Saying that You saved me From slipping On a night I Can barely recall, But feel consuming My heart a consummate Not that things Have gotten any Better recently But I’m writing Once more And with this, I will follow you Endless into the void
On The Telly
by David Severn Reporting murders in the East on One, sitcoms on Two, car commercials on Three, disfigurement documentary on Four.
TV Dinners
by Jim Stewart-Evans First it was a hiss Then it was a roar Ladles clanged on saucepans As they went to war. They’d rustled up some mischief A most rapacious menu Each of their objectives A television venue. Their schedule was fastidious As they started to invade Encircling White City With a zesty marinade. The olive oil was smoking As they besieged ITV Catapulting meatballs With a lusty 1-2-3. The essence of their battle Reached the nose and did persist The executives were famished Oh, how could they resist? First they dripped out in a trickle Then poured out in a rout To be served potato gratin And succulent poached trout. Oliver was knighted Ainsley reigned as king Delia preened beside him Gordon cursing in the wing. Hestor was imprisoned For releasing mustard gas; His guards were James and Ali Who forgot and let him pass. The hairy bikers made fresh doughnuts Sue trilled out “We’ve won!” Then they went back to their kitchens Whilst the ghost of Floyd drank on.
Crime Scene
by Frank McMahon You grew up in one of those unfashionable places, but your changed accent shows you’re denying all traces of a home town reduced to a crime scene in your mind. Your changed voice is the washing away of blood, the getting rid of evidence. Your occasional mentions of it deride it but you can’t completely hide it, especially when you’re angry or pissed. It’s in your DNA It won’t go away. You’ve changed the way you say bath.
Katie Half-Price Ayup meh ducks. Not done any reviews this ish cuz publishers have bin sendin’ meh death threats instead of books. The miserable gets. But I’m not bovvered cuz I’ve just gorra PR job @ Harper Collins. They paid Rooney five mil to write a five volume autobiographeh and the daft twat didn’t have owt ta write other than ‘scored another goal’. Borin’. So I tode him ta score with some prozzie mates a’ mine and threaten ta leave United. Now he’s gorra pay rise and Colleen’s threatening to leave him! The second volume will be called No Woman No Kai. See, there’s more ta meh than two gigantic knee shooters. Lol!
Before the Earthquake
A Darker Shade of Blue
Attention Deficit
Depresso
City of Ruin
Destinations
Maria Allen tindalstreet.co.uk, £7.99 This is the story of Concetta, a sturdy peasant girl who is injured in an earthquake and awakes to find herself pregnant, with no idea who the father is or how it happened. She then spends several months unravelling the mystery and recovering her memory. Allen was in the same year of the Nottingham Trent MA as I was when she started work on this book. The years she spent completing it show. It’s beautifully crafted, every sentence feeling carefully wrought and not a word out of place. The period detail is convincing too; I felt transported to rural Italy at the turn of the century. This is a compelling story, beautifully told. Already recognised by a shortlisting for the Desmond Elliott Prize, as well as a spot on BBC Radio 4’s Book at Bedtime, Maria Allen is a talented writer and one to watch for the future. She also appears on the WriteLion8 podcast. Nicola Monaghan
Brick knockabout.com, £12.99 This graphic novel kicks off with the main protagonist convinced he’s got the Big ‘C’ because one of his gonads has swollen. However, it turns out he’s depressed and has been for the last forty years. Depression has only recently been made socially acceptable thanks to ‘outings’ from the likes of Alistair Campbell and Steven Fry, so Brick has a solid foundation to build on. We see him deploy various coping mechanisms for the illness which include; religion, travelling, therapy, meditation, medication and masturbation, over 262 beautifully illustrated pages. But nothing works. He even has ‘an aversion to aversion therapy.’ The problem is simple; he thinks too much and is too hard on himself. For example, he feels intimidated by his intelligent friends, rather than seeing them as a reflection of his good taste. This is an earnest and entertaining read; just hope, for obvious reasons, that you don’t receive it as a Christmas present. If you do, skip to page 221 and enjoy the happy ending. James Walker
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John Harvey randomhouse.co.uk, £7.99 John Harvey’s Detective Resnick is one of the best loved characters to come out of Nottingham, doing for our city what fellow crime writers Ian Rankin, Graeme Hurley and Peter James have done for Edinburgh, Portsmouth and Brighton. In this collection of eighteen short stories, Harvey revisits numerous characters from previous novels, all of whom are united through an economic prose and gift for dialogue. Harvey’s strength is his ability to construct convincing and compelling situations, no matter what the word count, inviting us into the murky underworld of the metropolis. This won’t please the tourist board and politicians certainly won’t like the recurring moral; justice often prevails for the strongest rather than the deserving. The darker side of urban living is not pretty, but when a writer can convince you that a paedophile is trying to go straight, as with Sack O’Woe, you know you are in the capable hands of a master craftsman. John Marsh
Mark Charan Newton panmacmillan.com, £16.99 Since the first in the series, Nights of Villjamur, the story has advanced and moved away from the political intrigue to more practical matters, like feeding a city with a war coming and ensuring there is an escape route for the civilians. The forthcoming invasion by the Okun has to be prepared for and as always, everyone has their own problems to distract them. To add to all of this, things are getting a little weird within the city itself. The characters are delightfully complex, the most repugnant behaviour tempered by some sympathetic moments; these are characters to fret about between chapters. The story moves along at a good pace, and strikes a level between action, personal matters and investigations. There are strong elements of both fantasy and sci fi and at times it all gets delightfully strange. A brilliant second book following a strong first. Adele Harrison
Nigel Pickard weathervanepress.co.uk £7.99 This is Nigel Pickard’s follow-up to his debut novel One. The book, which is set in an inner-city Nottingham school, follows Harry and Lewis; a teacher and a pupil whose lives are on a collision course as they both struggle to stay afloat in lives which are capsizing. Pickard’s punchy prose and fast paced writing style add an urgency and readability to this thoroughly enjoyable 21st century novel. The dialogue and situations are painstakingly real (possibly due to Pickard’s background as a Nottingham teacher) and while it may not be for everyone, it does offer a vast amount of entertainment and (at times dry) humour. Lewis’ patchy, and often indecipherable writings, along with Harry’s witty exchanges with other characters, give the novel a cross generational appeal which should give adults and teenagers an insight into the similarities between these two very different generations. Niall Browne
Derrick Buttress shoestringpress.co.uk, £7.50 Finding a job and the pursuit of Saturday night diversions - “Music helped a week of tedious work to fade away” - are as relevant to life now as they were sixty years ago, although the abrupt end to childhood in Growing Pains, the opening poem of this new collection, reminds us of a time when the last day at school (aged fourteen) starkly equated to the first day of adult work. Much celebrated as a working class poet - (how the world loves its labels!) - Derrick Buttress has been widely broadcast and published across TV, radio and print. In section one of Destinations he evokes the Nottingham of his youth, before roaming further a-field in section two with poems inspired by the exploratory scientific journey of Alexander von Humboldt in 1799. The poetry world’s answer to Alan Sillitoe if you insist, but truly an original. Aly Stoneman