A Son of the Rock

Smokestack Books, 2012, 68 p.

Another book I noticed while scanning a (threatened) local library’s poetry shelf.

Gallagher was born in Glasgow of Irish parents. A fair few of the poems here, as in Tea with the Taliban, deal with servicemen’s experiences in Afghanistan while Fitness Test ponders the only suitable employment for an ex-soldier. Parable excoriates a priest who denounced striking workers from the pulpit and there is bitter satire in Capitalism Has To Be Applauded.

Pedant’s corner:- Everyone were (everyone was,) there was six minutes to go (minutes is plural; so there were six minutes.)