The People’s Favourite Poems.  Out and about with Kipling, Larkin and the rest

The People’s Favourite Poems.  Out and about with Kipling, Larkin and the rest

Published

September 2018

Publishers

UK
Old Street
A unique anthology of the poems that matter most to people, from Kipling’s If- to Hopkin’s Pied Beauty.

When a mystery eye condition made looking at a screen impossible, Gary Dexter had to rethink how to earn a living.  His solution?  Learn 100s of famous poems then hit the streets, approaching passers-by and offering to recite their favourite for cash.

His new calling soon drags him far beyond his comfort zone.  A woman orders to ‘sway like a daffodil’ as he performs Wordsworth’s floral classic; a security guard marches him out of Primark while he defiantly intones Invictus; a drunken soldier mourning a fallen comrade requests Auden’s Funeral Blues but turns nasty when the nervous performer fluffs a line.

In a series of remarkable encounters, Dexter finds out which poems people really love, and why.  The result is an authentic, funny and original twist on a familiar format – a poetry collection for our times.