Genre: English Novel - Comedy with Poetry
Published: 2020 - Read:
Brian Bilston (2022 - He's alive - but very secretive)
Pages: 288
Reader:
Frequently described as the Poet Laureate of Twitter, Brian Bilston is a poet clouded in the pipe smoke of mystery. Very little is known about him other than the fragments of information revealed on social media: his penchant for tank tops, his enjoyment of Vimto, his dislike of Jeremy Clarkson
.
‘Brian Bilston is a laureate for our fractured times, a wordsmith who cares deeply about the impact his language makes as it dances before our eyes.’
Ian McMillan
This novel is very funny, and has a poignancy too, which is often a good mix. His poems are witty and erudite, with massive helpings of self-deprecation. [Reminds me of the stand-up comedian who was advised to improve their routine by adding more self-deprecation, but gave up because they found out they weren't any good at it!] I'll add some comments on Bilston's book later.
For now, I just experimented with embedded a tweet from his twitter feed. Let's have a look and see if it has worked!
It has not worked, apparently...
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Today’s poem is called ‘How to Avoid Mixing Your Metaphors’. <a href="https://t.co/l72ROfcMg2">pic.twitter.com/l72ROfcMg2</a></p>— Brian Bilston (@brian_bilston) <a href="https://twitter.com/brian_bilston/status/1522844008090935296?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 7, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Awards
He has been described as the Banksy of poetry and Twitter’s unofficial Poet Laureate. With over 50,000 followers, numbering J. K. Rowling, Roger McGough and Frank Cottrell Boyce amongst many, many other luminaries, Brian has become truly beloved by the Twitter community. His first collection, You Took the Last Bus Home, was published by Unbound.