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21st Century Poetry with ANDY CROFT
New titles from Fran Lock, Richard Skinner, Tara Bergin and Mark A Murphy

AFTER all those appalling, fawning poems about the monarchy (leaving some writers who should have known better looking rather foolish), it is a relief to come across Fran Lock’s Sid James at the Poetry Society:

“Cor blimey! If you’re wearing those clothes for a bet, you’ve won…Your poetry is / for rent collectors rubbing their hands at your / sorry arrears … If you’re writing that shit for a bet, / you’ve won.”

Fran Lock’s new collection Hyena! (Poetry Bus Press, Ireland, €15) is her biggest and best collection yet, a series of vivid monologues and harangues by marginal voices, loners, outsiders and outcasts, surreal and subversive.

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