V. by Tony Harrison wales John Glenday is poet who

John Glenday is poet who constantly blindsides and moves us

Gaia Holmes

From “those once endless years” of a childhood in wartime – tasting of Granny’s chicken soup

In their quiet but fierce attention to  the unsung and the overlooked – paint splashes

stones outline a sleeping form

V. by Tony Harrison wales John Glenday is poet whoTony Harrison's v. was written during the Miners' Strike of 1984 85 when he visited his parents' grave in a Leeds cemetery and found it vandalised by obscene graffiti. In the book length poem, he confronts the foul mouthed skinhead thug responsible, who becomes a foil for his own anger and alienation. The political and media reaction to v. would make a book in itself. This is that book. As well as Tony Harrison's poem and Graham Sykes's photographs,