About A Bloody Mess by Richard O’Brien:
“Richard O’Brien is one of the strongest poets of his generation. He’s fiercely intelligent but smart enough, within these poems, to abandon pure intellect for love and for beauty. He manages to make the love poem feel fresh and direct statements such as ‘grass will heal more easily than skin’ seem to break through mere ‘poetry’ and into somewhere else entirely.
This is a clever, beguiling and dynamic collection; smart enough to wear its learning lightly. The poems bounce effortlessly from clever similes to ancient mythological references to intriguing characters, but these devices are never deployed simply for their own sake, they are each used to the benefit of the poem, to the benefit of the reader.” Andrew McMillan
Richard O’Brien’s first pamphlet, your own devices, was published by tall-lighthouse press in 2009, as part of the Pilot series for British and Irish poets under 30. His work has since featured in Poetry London, the Erotic Review, The Salt Book of Younger Poets and The Best British Poetry 2013. A second pamphlet, The Emmores, was published in early 2014 by the Emma Press. He lives in Stratford-upon-Avon.