Everyday Eclipses by Roger McGough

Everyday Eclipses

Roger McGough

McGough is known as a humerous poet, but this book covers depths as well as heights (perhaps the perspective of a certain age); I love the surreal imagination-gone-wild moments and the way the poet seems to be talking directly to you and sometimes gets you in the gut with a very serious subject, or is it dark humour? Sometimes you have to read the poem twice.

Extract

But oh, what lousy timing, how could anybody guess
Your career as a poet would last on hour or less.

Yes, it would have been marvellous, it would have been splendid
If you hadn't had it published on the day the world ended.

from On Having a First Book of Poetry Published (The day the world ended)

Parallels
  • The World's Wife by Carol Ann Duffy
  • Collected Short Stories by Roald Dahl
  • Monty Python's Flying Circus