Forged in the crucible of self-isolation, furlough and the general awfulness of 2020 – and scored to a soundtrack of Bach’s sacred cantatas – these are poems inspired by the view from an upstairs window, the empty streets of an eerily silent housing estate, the intermittency of delivery vans, the underbelly of Netflix, and the battle against day-drinking.

Neil Fulwood is the author of two previous collections from Shoestring Press, No Avoiding It and Can’t Take Me Anywhere. He co-edited, with David Sillitoe, the tribute anthology More Raw Material: work inspired by Alan Sillitoe (Lucifer Press, 2015). He lives and works in Nottingham.

No Avoiding It

“A home town geography of work and class.” – Martin Figura

“Neil Fulwood is very good at writing tight, elegiac portraits of the changing patterns of work and working-class culture. His powerful first full collection No Avoiding It is a sustained and splendidly grumpy dismissal of the way we live now.” – Andy Croft, The Morning Star

“Neil Fulwood’s debut collection places work and class at its very core, echoing sentiments of Alan Sillitoe’s Saturday Night and Sunday Morning.” – Ella Poyzer, LeftLion

Can’t Take Me Anywhere

“Can’t Take Me Anywhere is a wonderfully gruff collection of minimalist urban landscapes – witty and scathing about work, politics, traffic, weather and the inanities of contemporary life.” – Andy Croft, The Morning Star

“Fulwood undoubtedly cultivates a curmudgeonly image but his judgements seem usually to be accurate and measured. Furthermore his poetic craft and rhetorical skills are well developed.” – Thomas Ovans, London Grip