"People who don't much like poetry will like these poems, but poetry-lovers should enjoy them too. More important than the placing of them on library shelves would be the keeping of them in your bicycle basket, to read when you're munching your cut-lunch among the cow parsley, or in the pocket of your anorak, to take a look at while your dog is investigating something under a hedgerow." – Germaine Greer

Published by Jardine Press and with a foreword by Germaine Greer, this is the first comprehensive collection of Martin Newell's poems. The selection was the author's own and represents the very best of twenty years work – much of it originally commissioned for publication in national newspapers. There are a few poems here which were initially aired on BBC TV and radio as well as a sprinkling of stage favourites which it was felt essential to include.

Man of Essex, thoroughbred
Lead in pencil, gear in shed,
Brass in pocket, books in red,
Always kept his ferrets fed.

Martin Newell, a self-styled pop poet, is also a writer, broadcaster and musician. First published in The Guardian in 1984, he wrote regularly for The Independent for 15 years before taking up his current post as Poet-in-Residence for The Sunday Express and columnist for the East Anglian Daily Times. He has previously published a number of collections of verse and one pop memoir: This Little Ziggy. He lives in Essex and the book launch at Messum's on 6th May appropriately coincides with the gallery's East Coast Influences exhibition.

Jardine Press 2008
140 x 210mm, 160pp
ISBN 978-0-9552035-6-5
Paperback £8.95

review in The Independent,
Friday 23 May 2008: