I’M not superstitious, so yesterday, being Friday 13th, was just another day — absolutely no reason for Flapjack Press not to publish my latest and 11th book of poems, Fiery Words For Hellish Times. Some clueless PR agent might frame it as an act of existentialist defiance, but I do my own PR and I’m honest. It was simply the day it fitted into their release calendar.

This is by far the most angry, topical, passionate collection I’ve ever written, mirroring  the state of the world right now — the title says it all. I have a huge tour built around it, and this very night I’m at Diego’s in Sunderland, a place which means a hell of a lot to me, performing alongside the brilliant Mackem punks Red London and their mates Slalom D. I got Red London their first record deal and produced their first single, 44 years ago. Time flies, eh? It’s no coincidence that it’s also the first time Brighton are playing at the Stadium of Light for decades. May the best team win, as long as it’s us!

It’s lovely to have a publisher again. After my first two poetry books were released in 1986 and 1992 respectively by then-powerful imprints Unwins and Bloodaxe, I took the DIY path for the next six volumes and manufactured them myself. I sell the majority of my books at gigs (and these days online) and it made total sense to self-publish — but massive pallets of books turning up at the door, needing lugging up to the loft, is less of a welcome sight now than it was 30 years ago and Flapjack Press exists to publish performance poetry and does it superbly.  

Thanks to head Flapjack Paul — and thanks also to designer Alan Wares, my Minister of Propaganda for the last 20 years, for another brilliant job. You can get a copy from all my gigs, attilathestockbroker.bandcamp.com or your local indie bookseller: if they haven’t got it in stock, pester them! All the tour dates are at facebook.com/attilathestockbroker.

As Trump and Netanyahu wreck our world every voice is welcome in the resistance, and if it sings words of defiance set to stirring tunes so much the better. So Bard Company’s utterly stonking new album 21st Century Bullshit Detector has arrived just at the right moment.

Sterling activists and fine poets Tony Kinsella, Ian Whiteley and Jeff Dawson (aka Bolshie Bard, Rocky Bard and Punky Bard) are formidable wordsmiths, and they made the excellent decision to ask fellow Wiganite John Kettle to write the music for them.

The result is absolutely superb, beautifully produced folk-tinged agitprop punk rock of the finest order, with the one non-original being a Rancid cover (that’s not an insult, it’s the name of the best actually existing punk band in the world!). And all this is completely logical, since John is the driving force behind Wigan’s inspirational folk-rockers Merry Hell and previously played musical centre-forward for The Tansads, alternative punk label-mates of mine on Liverpool’s iconic Probe Plus Records and writers of gorgeous anthems. 

My favourite track is the roaring, seething Leviathan:

The senile wolf is at the door
Spewing racist chaos hate
Howling at perceived injustice
A permanent and hostile state
See the war pigs gathering round
His rancid and disgusting trough
This is where the demons shelter
Raise their fascist flags aloft

This is now the new world order
See the storm clouds ‘cross the skies
Where the warlords and the tyrants
Slip their masks and fake disguise
A covenant of evil men
Who twist their words and hide their lies
Sheep are voting for their butchers
Democracy lays down and dies’

Fantastic stuff. And it’s all in the same vein.  Rage, solidarity and hope. This from What Have We Become? 

What have we become? 
What have we become?
In this world of hate and prejudice 
We’ve got to stay strong 
We’ve got to stay strong

Too right. Unity! See you at the anti-fascist march in London in two weeks’ time: it’s the most important event of its kind since Lewisham in 1977.

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