The Glamour Poet Versus Francis Bacon, Rent and Eyelinered Pussycat Dolls

The first book of Jeremy Reed's uncompromising, explicitly autobiographical expose of his life as a leading London poet from the 1980s to the present day, a major long poem written in the shop, while managing Red Snapper Books in the period 2007-2008, takes in an acutely personalised retrieval of the Piccadilly Circus ethos in the eighties, including meetings with the artist Francis Bacon, bohemian Soho, an index of personal obsessions including rock music and fashion, a defiant colour block of personal friends, patrons, pick-ups and demi-monde outlaws, all generously characterised for their individual importance and contribution to the poet's life, and a direct full-on involvement with unstoppable big-city momentum in the capital, intensely lived on a day to day basis. The book is a highly courageous and cutting edge poet's autobiography, explicit and detailed in a way few poets would dare celebrate quite literally the uncensored resources of a highly individual and sustained personal creativity.