WHAT by John Cooper Clarke (Picador, £16.99)
A big-hearted poet of boundless humour and unmistakable style, Clarke has written some of the catchiest contemporary ballads about social injustice. Many poems in WHAT satirise modern dysfunctional Britain with deadly wit. In Clown Town, he captures the forgotten post-industrial landscape that went “downhill from the 70s boom” and is now filled with “soft shoe shuffle home”. Opposite Clown Town, Dream Home Ghetto depicts rampant soulless developments where “The whole town’s on holiday” and “There is a social roadblock / Where the brakes are set to screech / You can keep Utopia Parkway / And stick your Cameo Beach”.From nail bars to “discount chops”, Clarke uses his dandyish rhymes to shed a critical light on many kinds of jarring social division. Hailed as the original “people’s poet”, his down-to-earth poetry can be eye-catching and moving, ironic and nonsensical. The lighter pieces include a poem for Sir Tom Jones, who is “Back in town in the black Rolls-Royce / The funky hunky housewives’ choice”.
