Ken Smith

Ken Smith The Poet Reclining was published by Bloodaxe Books, who are bringing out two further collections, A Book of Chinese Whispers and The Persistence of Vision, next year.

Poem: ‘Your Friend the Drifter’

Ken Smith, 21 June 1984

Too many years up and down the world chasing some light that goes out. She’s always moved, the job turns out to be some people talking in a train.

Some work up cures for new diseases, some we never see decode our traffic. Others are mapping the new dictatorships, others the movies they will make of them.

But all night long I have been underwater mining the harbours off Nicaragua, I need...

Letter

‘Nothing Sacred’

3 March 1983

SIR: So why is Frank Sinatra famous? Because everybody knows him. And why does everybody know him? Because he’s famous, of course. Names, repeated often enough, become household, but let’s not confuse publicity with genuine criticism. It seems of late that at the rattle of every quality paper the names and credentials of the so-called Martian poets swim through the newsprint. What ever we may think...
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