ENDORSEMENTS
My copy of Viral Verses has arrived!! A beautifully presented book of Lockdown poetry. Well worth a look!
Mark Hoyle, of the legendary
Manchester band Dub Sex
We turn to poetry in times of need. Poetry is with us at birth, at death, in sorrow and in celebration. We read it, we remember it, we recite it, and we write it. This volume is witness to the extraordinary power of poetry and the intensity of the times through which we have been living. Reading through these very varied poems is a remarkable experience.
Dame Margaret Drabble,
Novelist, critic and biographer
The coronavirus pandemic has highlighted the strong weft and warp, as well as the rips, in our social fabric. Art gives rich pattern to that fabric and weaves us together – it has a power we need, and that we need to share widely. Find your favourites in this rich collection and take solace or take action or both...
Kate Pickett,
Professor of Epidemiology and best-selling co-author of The Spirit Level.
In these times of uncertainty burdened with sad aloneness, poems that speak as powerfully and beautifully as those in Viral Verses are a gift. Let the words and images touch your soul; let them return joy to your heart. While I can’t touch my neighbour, I can be touched by the universal. What a gift!
Nancy J. Adler
Artist, Professor, Author
McGill University, Montreal, Canada
This is a powerful and poignant collection of poems which has been spawned from this singular time. Beautiful words and illustrations from the perspectives of young and old minds, talents refined and raw, have been woven together into a stunning piece of art. A truly magnificent coming together of creatives.
Milly Johnson,
Author, after-dinner speaker, poet, professional joke writer and newspaper columnist
Viral Verses is a warm and approachable collection that showcases poets both famous and obscure in a variety of meditations on our current malaise; funny, tender, scary, hopeful. It is rich with humanity and teems with life and is, of course, for the very best of causes.
Stuart Maconie,
Author and radio presenter
A pandemic has forced us to face our human frailty; it can also spur us to stand together in common humanity. The NHS is a national symbol of all that is best in our hopes and ideals. The verse and art in this book are touching and beautiful gifts of thanks for all the heroic care that NHS staff have offered the weak, the ill and the bereaved.
Revd. Prof. Sir Diarmaid MacCulloch, FBA, Vice-President (Public Engagement) of the British Academy and Professor Emeritus of the History of the Church, University of Oxford.
