V. by Tony Harrison wales From “those once endless years”

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

stones outline a sleeping form

The book is situated in the midst of a reckoning with the colonial past that has shaped the UK and its ally the US

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

a bunker dissolves into gold upon Pennard’s shoulder

V. by Tony Harrison wales From “those once endless years”Tony 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,