Review of 'Ten Years in an Open Necked Shirt (Arena Books)' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
This is the first book I've read by JCC and I guess you gotta see him perform to really get the feel of his poems, to me on this first reading they all feel a bit simple, I was expecting something more cheeky/punk.
The intro is brilliant, a little bit about JCC's life and about how he was brought up (Could have been written by Dali). A lot of poets watch people and write what they see, JCC does this, but what he sees is not what anybody else would see, I hope that is his intention and he isn't writing like this just to make things rhyme nicely. A couple of stand out poems (mainly cos they were rude ) were "A love story is reverse" reminded me of that Pogues Christmas song and by far the best was "Evidently chicken Town" where the word f***ing is used 82 times.
The poems are accompanied by some top notch illustrations by Steve Maguire, some real surreal pictures and plenty of boobs for me to enjoy.