Could Have Been Funny

A brand new voice. And voice it is which is the principal concern of this fresh, accessible, humane, witty, incident-packed, character-crammed, absolutely un-self-centred poetry. Here's an elegiac and lyrical evocation of a port in decline and its declining unsung inhabitants. Glyn Wright sings them. In dramatic monologues from ordinary working - or out-of-work - people, their speech rendered with a fine and an inventive precision. -- Liz Lochhead * Poetry Book Society Bulletin * These poems take you softly through the universes their words create, full of affection and fear, humour and menace... Wright makes a powerful contemporary music and this is one of the most accomplished first collections I've read in years. -- Ian Duhig Excellent...like Alan Bleasdale's characters, Wright's bricklayers, bakers and joyriders stay with you...naming experiences often left out of poetry, remembering things all too easily forgotten. -- Mark Robinson * Scratch *

Glyn Wright's prizewinning debut collection from Spike is made available from Bloodaxe to coincide with the publication of his second collection, Shindig (1997). Could Have Been Funny won the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival Prize and was a Poetry Book Society Choice.