John Lucas's new collection makes extraordinary poetry out of ordinary life; a pint of beer, a cup of coffee, jazz, poetry and the history of 'Bloody England'. With subtle craft and wry wit, he locates his democratic art in everyday conversation, remembered, overheard, imagined. Lucas's anarchic poetic alter-ego Thorn Gruin turns up as usual, joined here by the ghosts of Socrates, Gary Sobers, George Crabbe, Brian Clough and Duke Ellington; a flock of starlings, an army of Daves and the not-so-legendary 'Doug Haskin's Hot Six'.
From domestic interiors to international politics, Flute Music is a manifesto to the provincial and the urban, the domestic and the familial, a book that is proud to take sides with the 'ragged-arsed' and the 'common' against all 'swots' and 'toffs' everywhere.
"Lucas's poems have the essential timbre of integrity and humanity, they are a declaration of what life could and should be."
Poetry Wales
"Lucas is a dab hand at social observation. The language crackles with his colloquial art."
The Guardian
"Sometimes, reading the Sunday-paper celebrities of our time, I fear I don't like poetry. It's a relief to come across the real thing again."
Herbert Lomas
"So enjoyable that I’ll be searching out his earlier books."
South
"Complex, witty, well-rounded, highly intelligent."
Ambit
"That rare thing, a socially, politically committed poetry, with sympathies firmly rooted in the Socialism we have shamefully almost lost sight of."
Orbis
John Lucas is Professor Emeritus at the Universities of Loughborough and Nottingham Trent. He is the author of many scholarly and critical works including studies of Dickens, John Clare, Arnold Bennett, Ivor Gurney and several books on English poetry, Romantic and Modern writing.
From domestic interiors to international politics, Flute Music is a manifesto to the provincial and the urban, the domestic and the familial, a book that is proud to take sides with the 'ragged-arsed' and the 'common' against all 'swots' and 'toffs' everywhere.
"Lucas's poems have the essential timbre of integrity and humanity, they are a declaration of what life could and should be."
Poetry Wales
"Lucas is a dab hand at social observation. The language crackles with his colloquial art."
The Guardian
"Sometimes, reading the Sunday-paper celebrities of our time, I fear I don't like poetry. It's a relief to come across the real thing again."
Herbert Lomas
"So enjoyable that I’ll be searching out his earlier books."
South
"Complex, witty, well-rounded, highly intelligent."
Ambit
"That rare thing, a socially, politically committed poetry, with sympathies firmly rooted in the Socialism we have shamefully almost lost sight of."
Orbis
John Lucas is Professor Emeritus at the Universities of Loughborough and Nottingham Trent. He is the author of many scholarly and critical works including studies of Dickens, John Clare, Arnold Bennett, Ivor Gurney and several books on English poetry, Romantic and Modern writing.