Reprint of Tom's Leonard's first published book.
Many of the poems appear in his later books. The intention has been to copy this as accurately as possible, including any typos the original had.
Contents
11 The Other Side of the Ticket
12 Dream
13 Summer
14 Another Sunday-poem
15 Sweetheart
16 Patron of the Arts
17 Epitaph on an Introvert Wit
18 Television Advertisement
19 Little Jenny's Complaint (1)
20 Little Jenny's Complaint (2)
21 The Romantic
22 Hill Street
23 The Inner Melancholy of the Poet
24 Phallflower
25 The Psychopath
26 The Remark
27 similie please / say cheese
29-36 A Priest Came On At Merkland Street
38 She sells sea-shells
39 Psychiatrist
40 Words, for E.
41 This Island Now
42 Soft and Strong
43 The Voyeur
44 Honest
45 Landscape
47-50 The Performance
52 Perpetual Stasis
53 The Image
54 The Poetry Reading
55 Pyrrhic Victory
56 The Main Feature
57 Keep Right On
58 As Luck Would Have It
59 23rd Story
60 The Virgins
61 Storm Damage
62 I said
63 Full-frontal Astronauts
64 At the Employment Exchange
65 The Appetite
67-75 Six Glasgow Poems
76-79 Three Pollock Posters
Below is the description that been on back of the original book
Tom Leonard was born in Glasgow in 1944. He worked as a Civil Servant then as a sales assistant in a bookshop before entering Glasgow University as a student in 1967. He left two years later without completing his degree: a variety of clerical jobs followed. He currently works for the Post Office in London. He is married (and has one son).
It was during his term as a student at Glasgow University, when his poems appeared in university magazines, that his work began to draw some attention in Scotland. Poems subsequently appeared in established Scottish magazines, and samples of his work were broadcast several times on B.B.C. Radio. A local Glasgow publisher, Midnight Press, then published his "Six Glasgow Poems" and "A Priest Came on at Merkland Street", and both of these publications established the poet's reputation as one of the most talented and original young writers on the contemporary Scottish literary scene. After many readings in Glasgow and at successive Edinburgh Festivals, he was granted a literary award by the Scottish Arts Council in 1971.
A comprehensive selection of his work has been long overdue. This first "slim volume" will undoubtedly be welcome on many Scottish bookshelves; it will also, we are sure, further establish Tom Leonard's reputation beyond his native Scotland, and will provide a rewarding experience for all those throughout the British Isles who are interested in contemporary poetry.
