Alexa, what is there to know about love?

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There's A Supermarket Where Once The Library Stood" is an important piece of social and political commentary.

Picador have shown some interest in publishing my diary and I am on tender hooks. I could really do with the money; it’s not easy to scrape an existence from poetry and, in recent times, it’s become increasingly difficult to make hen’s meat. I just hope it passes mustard. His second poetry collection , Alexa, what is there to know about love? contains a number of amusing, poignant, and often beautiful poems about love, taking up the first and last sections of the book. The first section includes ‘The Cavemen’s Lament’, encompasses Plato, Cleopatra and Candy Crush, and a poignant ‘Three Postcards’, set during the first world war. We move on to modern life in the second section, with poems such as ‘There’s a Supermarket Where Once the Library Stood’; the procrastinating ‘To Do List’, with its “stroke the cat” refrain; and ‘As Easy as Alpha Bravo Charlie’, with Bilston wrestling with the Nato phonetic alphabet. In this latest collection we see a melding of ancient and modern, for example Plato and Google. The poem which lends the book its title is superb - funny, moving and poignant. There were a few stand outs for me, as follows:The final poem, ‘Gun Fight in the Last Chance Saloon’, sums up Brian Bilston’s defiant and quietly revolutionary appeal, to my mind. He may long for a “slow news day” in one of his best-known poems, ‘Serenity Prayer’, but make no mistake. Laughter may be the best medicine, but it is also an excellent weapon when used with craft and skill. This poet is dangerous. For despite it’s universal themes, this is very much a poetry book for our times. With a comforting, a times sing song voice and a crucial bite Bilston offers us commentary and sharp, powerful insight in to recent political and societal events. The eight lines of The White House will have you reeling and for anyone despairing about the rise of the right, Brexit and wider social conditions there are poems within this book that will have you nodding in agreement , even if that agreement is tinged with despair. And for a bookworm like me the shape poem Tsundoku is just perfection. To the point where I am sure Brian Bilston has bugged my home and is tapping into a recurring argument with Mr C!! ( And if you want to know what that argument might be, you will have to buy the book!) Brian Bilston is the poet for people who don't like poetry. The People's Poet, if you will. He's a master of words and always manages to strike just the right emotional balance in his work. Poetry often has the reputation of pretentious writers twiddling a quill in their study, brewing up farfetched witticisms and flaunting worryingly expansive knowledge of flowers and birds on a laboriously lengthy verse. While I think this image of poets has shifted over the decades, we sometimes need a reminder of the wonders that down-to-earth, lighthearted poetry does for its readers. Brian Bilston’s brand new Alexa, What is There to Know About Love? is an immensely heartfelt collection of poems that make us ask the hard questions about love, but with a giggle along the way.

And indeed there are many poems that focus on the age old questionsof love in all its many forms. Here you will find love poems for the ages; for the past; for the future. All quirky, all clever and all deliciously original. Take for example Five Clerihews for Doomed Loves, a tribute to some of the most iconic recorded lovers. No spoilers here but I will say that the poets views of Romeo and Juliet had me cheering in agreement!

I shared the news at Poetry Club. Toby Salt turned as white as a sheep! I think he’s worried that my book will eclipse his collection of ‘poetry’, This Bridge No Hands Shall Cleft. As usual, he began casting nasturtiums about my own verse. I should sue him for deformation of character.

Coming in all shapes and sizes, Bilston’s works explore loneliness, infatuation, and Brexit. Just as I was getting to the end of my tether with repetitive lamentations on these very subjects, Bilston gives a friendly and endearing perspective on what we have seen all too much of. His poems surrounding Brexit were unapologetically against the move, having compared it to all of Britain holding hands and jumping off a cliff together, but at the same time, captured the universal sentiment of wanting it to all be over so we can stop having to hear about it. ‘Penguins’ was a favourite of mine when reading the political pieces in this collection, exposing our absurdity and inhumanity towards those stranded outside our coasts with nowhere else to go. Liz must have noticed because she placed her hand on my arm as if to restrain me. I may have to write a poem about that later. But the thought of her made me girdle my loins: now was not the time for any spurt-of-the moment grand gestures.

Comments

Brian Bilston gives us a homely approach to the questions that have puzzled us for thousands of years. Baby Queen –‘Quarter Life Crisis’ review: rising alt-pop star delivers an introspective, yet gloriously fun, debut album