Ritual Soup and other liquids
Mariscat Press, 2002
39 pages. £5
ISBN 0-946588-32-5
A chapbook bringing together some of the best of the new poems written towards the end of the first phase of Graham Fulton's poetic career.
"This is 'in your face' poetry, verse as stand-up comedy; even on the page every Fulton poem is a performance, while on stage Fulton puts his work over with a pugnacity and aplomb uncommon among poets. His chippy lack of sentimentality, his excoriating ability not merely to describe but to embody frustration, the detached hipness of the technique, all these serve to amplify the scream".Donny O'Rourke
"It's all 17th Century Dutch cow carcass and Francis Bacon – but it is the truth … The Statues Outside Paisley Town Hall has the cinematic element that Fulton does so well. Perhaps it's a bit naïve but the word 'happy' reverberates as you close the book. Why? I know you're not supposed to read poetry like a book but with a short collection – that's what you do. So the denouement is important".Karen Docherty, Northwords
The Statues Outside Paisley Town Hall
From Ritual Soup and other liquids
between
the sublime curved
hump of snow
that has grown
onto the bent back
of
ornithologist and poet
Alexander Wilson
who gazes benignly
at the bird he
has just shot
and
the thick white wig
that has sewn itself
onto the tragic
green weathered head
of
weaver and poet
Robert Tannahill
who clutches tightly
the lapel of
his frock coat
a-not-as-young-as-
he-used-to-be me
is petrified
in the process
of
slipping, falling
over
and breaking
the bottle of wine
in my Oddbins bag
as
two happy children
laugh and point
