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  • Published: 1 February 2022
  • ISBN: 9780241517352
  • Imprint: Viking
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 112
  • RRP: $22.99
Categories:

Safety in Numbers




A beautiful new collection of poetry from one of Britain's best-loved poets

From 'Adultery in Isolation' to 'After You. No, After You' to 'Seaside Staycation,' a new collection from one of Britain's best-loved poets. Roger McGough brings his inimitable voice to subjects light and dark, relationships old and new, and the slippery, strange, and surreal nature of recent times. Alight with humour, wit, wisdom, and feeling, the finest poetry with the lightest touch from a poet who has captured the imagination of readers for decades.

  • Published: 1 February 2022
  • ISBN: 9780241517352
  • Imprint: Viking
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 112
  • RRP: $22.99
Categories:

About the author

Roger McGough

Date: 2004-03-15
Roger McGough was born in Liverpool in 1937. He has written over 50 books for both. He has won the Signal Award for Poetry twice, and the Cholmondeley Award. He has also won a BAFTA for his film work and a Royal Television Society Award for his TV series. He was awarded the freedom of the City of Liverpool in 2001 and his OBE in 1997. He presents Poetry Please and guest hosts Home Truths on Radio 4.

Roger McGough was born in Liverpool and educated at St Mary's College and the University of Hull. He has been a writer for many years, and his numerous collections have established him as one of the most distinctive and powerful voices in contemporary poetry. Among his most popular titles are Summer with Monika, Blazing Fruit and Defying Gravity, all published by Penguin, and for children An Imaginary Menagerie, Pillow Talk and Bad, Bad Cats. He is an international ambassador for poetry and in 1997 was awarded an OBE, and in 2004 he was awarded a CBE. His most recent books include All the Best and Slapstick and for adults,  Collected Poems and Selected Poems.

Also by Roger McGough

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Praise for Safety in Numbers

McGough is a true original and more than one generation would be much the poorer without him

The Times

McGough has done for poetry what champagne does for weddings

Time Out

Memorable and enduring and fresh. Age has not withered [his lines] nor diminished their potency. Of how much modern poetry can you say that?

Sunday Herald, on ‘joinedupwriting’

McGough's trademarks: the craft worn as lightly as the crown, the jokes that are something more, the underlying heartache, the acute sense of the way time slips away

Poetry Review, on ‘joinedupwriting’

The patron saint of poetry

Carol Ann Duffy

Sparky, thoughtful, inventive, and fun, it's also the mix of these qualities that makes this a fantastic collection

Buzz Magazine

This slim volume is a joy, packed with wry observation, vim and wit that deftly captures the spirit of these strange times we inhabit. Journeying through topical subjects, from rising oceans and adultery in lockdown to seaside staycations and an ode to Laura Kuenssberg, poet Roger McGough has a keen eye for the magical moments within the mundanities of modern life

Herald

Probably the best-known contemporary poet in the country, Roger McGough still tours his brand of zany takes on British culture . . . Safety in Numbers runs with several themes, including the pandemic, how to write poems and even being a narrator and voice-over artist. . . . [with] a lot of characteristically clever imagery and wordplay, such as in Warning Signs, a list of aphorisms, "Time to hit the road? You stumble, hit the road".

Expert Reviews, Best Poetry Books for 2022