Currently Out Of Stock
Hoyoot
Paperback
€23.94
Collect 71 Reward Points
- Currently Out Of Stock
- Book Synopsis
- For Tom Pickard poetry is a free, and freeing, space. His pen 'demands / complete autonomy', and finds it as it explores both harsh and lyrical realities with a northern working-class sensibility. A lifelong counter-cultural figure, Pickard transcends formal and thematic barriers with a lightness of touch that is informed both by anger and by love.
- About The Author
- Pickard grew up in the working-class suburbs of Cowgate, Newcastle upon Tyne, and Blakelaw, and left school at the age of fourteen. Three years later he met Basil Bunting and was instrumental in the older poet's return to writing in the early 1960s, leading to the latter's most acclaimed poem, the long, autobiographical Briggflatts, published in 1966. The association also produced Bunting's scathing "What the Chairman told Tom" ("I want to wash when I meet a poet.... my twelve-year-old can do it - AND rhyme!"). In 1963, with his first wife Connie, Pickard founded and ran the Morden Tower Book Room, where he organised a series of readings by British and American modernist tradition poets, including Bunting. He also set up the Ultima Thule Bookshop - specialising in poetry, music and alternative counter-culture publications - between 1969 and 1973. During this period he also travelled in the United States to give performances and renew friendships with some of the American Morden Tower readers, including Allen Ginsberg, Robert Creeley and Ed Dorn. Allen Ginsberg said of him: "I am an old admirer of Tom Pickard's poetry and believe as does Basil Bunting that he is one of the most live and true poetic voices in Great Britain." As a poet, Pickard is known for his poetic range, from erotic to political, from lyrically delicate to poignantly sad to bluntly expletive-driven. He was described as a "voice of finesse and powerful emotion" by Jeff Nuttall. In the preface to "Fuckwind," former Beatle Paul McCartney wrote, "This collection of poems and songs soars over the fells, screeching truth, sex, humor, anger and love." As well as poetry Pickard has complied books of oral history and has directed and produced a number of documentary films.
- Product Details
-
- ISBN
- 9781847772541
- Format
- Paperback
- Publisher
- Carcanet Poetry, (01 October 2025)
- Number of Pages
- 316
- Weight
- 397 grams
- Language
- English
- Dimensions
- 216 x 135 x 17 mm
- Categories: