All the Tonys of the World

In “Professions” I wrote about “all these Tonys of the world”. This poem about work found its way into Emily’s Poems for Modern Boys, a collection of 25 poems about life, love and work for the today’s gentleboys. Thank you to Joe Depeau for the use of his lovely photograph of Tony’s Continental in N2.

Things a poet needs: laptop, coffee, soya milk, oats

This poem is based on the day in 2012 when I finally took the plunge and bought a laptop in London. The incessant “£299 on Strand” echoes my personal obsession with the cost of things, which I really am trying to transcend in 2014 (…both the cost of things and the obsession). This close attention to price

Two Summer Poems: one about fruit, the other about birds

Pakistan’s Gold, a poem about a mango’s journey, explores the relay of fruit exports that brings the taste of summer from one place to the ingesting of summer in another. Twenty Auspicious Cranes, presents very plainly two experiences of coincidence, captured and formulated as wonders and then taken for signs.

PROFESSIONS

There are all these Tonys of the world: Italian, Greek, Portuguese, Lebanese, Eastern European, who own sewing-machine shops, grocery stores, corner cafés and sometimes sell insurance. Anthony, Antonin, Antonio and the more Teutonic, Anton. But Anton was the opera singer after he’d worked for a while on the railway. — Another poem for possible inclusion