Books by Alan Dent

These stories put me in mind of Gissing and Richard Yates - who in their very different centuries and countries mercilessly exposed the threadbare materialistic dreams of the middle classes. Neither of those admirable writers was hugely popular, nor ever, in the glib sense, populist, but both were true and powerful storytellers. Dent too is a disabused social critic, moralist and analyst of human nature, someone who castigates snobbery and hypocrisy with sardonic often heart-rending honesty. Dent shares their bitter sense of humour and keen sympathy for all failures and misfits - anyone trapped by blighted relationships and thwarted ambitions.

Alan Dent was born in Preston in 1951. He has published five volumes of poetry, four collections of translations from French, a book of reviews of contemporary poetry, five collections of short stories and nine novels under a pen name (all to be re-issued under his own name) and is the founder and editor of The Penniless Press and its successor, MQB.

Alan Dent was born in Preston in 1951. He has published five volumes of poetry, four collections of translations from French, a book of reviews of contemporary poetry, five collections of short stories and nine novels under a pen name (all to be re-issued under his own name) and is the founder and editor of The Penniless Press and its successor, MQB.

Joe Orton was ruined and knew it, but he wasn't a hypocrite. He was ruined by his culture. He was poor, ill-educated, raised in a family whose dominating personality was a tyrant. He was deprived of love and figures he could identify with. His society was to blame for his poverty. It was widespread when he was born on 1st January 1933. At the time, most wage-earners didn't pay income tax. There was no health service, education was hit and miss. Deprivation was accepted by many of those in power as a fact of life. Orton was born into an exploitative, manipulative, abusive, hypocritical culture. He came to realize it and employed his genius in scathing mockery of the society which did him so much harm. Orton's plays show what happens when people won't face the truth about themselves. The carnage in Noel Road on 9th August 1967 might have been the final scene from one of his works. Orton had lived close to violence and abuse all his life. He knew a violent death was always possible.

For the past twenty years Alan Dent's caustic, witty, polemical, enthusiastic and highly individual reviews of modern poetry have been the most eagerly read section of his magazines The Penniless Press and Mistress Quickly's Bed. Few critics can boast of having a poem written about their activity (Dentistry by Edward MacKinnon), but it isn't surprising Dent has: he may divide opinion, but he is always memorable and never afraid of making enemies ( at least the right ones). This volume contains all his poetry reviews since 1995 together with a few longer pieces. Follow the thread of their argument and you will find an original and bracing view of modern poetry in Britain. The title is drawn from a quotation by Miroslav Holub used as the book's epigraph. Taking his cue from the great Czech, Dent hunts down the excessive subjectivity of modern poets and spikes it. In doing so he works out a different possibility for poetry. No one interested in modern poetic practice should miss this book.