Deadlines
Jim Greenhalf
- ISBN:978-1-9998878-9-6
- Format:Paperback
- Published:April 2024
- RRP (UK):£7.50
"He writes about history and can be astute about politics with a couple of sharp lines...all his poems are marked by an easiness of movement (his technique is unobtrusive) and a clarity of expression that never leaves the reader in any doubt about what is being dealt with. - Jim Burns
Jim Greenhalf's poetry has always been maverick. In “Cromwell's Head” (2023), he declared that he was not a poet but simply a reporter using poetic techniques to tell his stories. In this, his latest book, he directly draws on his 38 years as a news/feature writer for Bradford's then-broadsheet evening newspaper the Telegraph & Argus, particularly the period in the late 1980s when he interviewed in depth many of the great and the good - Bobby Robson, Ken Livingstone, Barbara Cartland and Sir Kingsley Amis with whom he got slightly sloshed on double vodkas.
His poetry is soaked in the history and culture of our times. In his incisively intelligent poems, you meet a big personality and your own empathy and understanding are enlarged by the encounter.
He writes about history and can be astute about politics with a couple of sharp lines...all his poems are marked by an easiness of movement (his technique is unobtrusive) and a clarity of expression that never leaves the reader in any doubt about what is being dealt with. - Jim Burns
The poems transcend nostalgia, by casting a critical lens on the past, comparing and contrasting it with how things are now...When a man reaches a certain point in life, he carries the weight of history in his blood and bones. - Michael Stuart
Changing Trains, Changing Times
Too young to notice the Fifties leaving the station -
Pat Boone, Alma Cogan and Frankie Vaughan
looking backwards as the diesel took them
away from girls screaming at hirsute musicians.
The Age of Aquarius arrived at Paddington
bearing posters of Che Guevara, Mao Tse Tung
and Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh. Cuban heels, cheesecloth,
skinny-rib jumpers, bob cuts and military regalia
from the rajah days of Empire were already in.
Some made a great leap forward, others took a trip
Up the Junction or Round the Horne.
Skirts went up and knickers went Down Your Way
with Franklein Engelman. Records were LPs,
not yet albums. Long before they hit the moon
Americans were shooting up Kennedys and Kings,
the jungles of Vietnam.
The Sixties departed in clouds of saffron dust
as hairless dancers chanted Hare Krishna,
and news presenters talked of Agent Orange,
napalm and collateral damage.
The Seventies brought in 'The Ascent of Man'
insurgencies, denim and Black September.
The currency changed.
All Our Yesterdays piled like bin-bags.
Somewhere between Baker's Alms
and Albion Square I lost myself.
False Endings
When have the times
not threatened Armageddon?
The bullet that passed
through the heart
of the last century
still rifles through this one.
When all the storms
whirling out of the sky
have ripped the earth
like a lid from a tin;
when all the lies
have exiled the truth
and closed the borders
to faith and reason;
when dust and ashes
thickly drift and the time
we have to risk the gift
we failed to bless
flat-lines on a screen;
the only pillar left
supporting us
is the hope
of a false ending,
the chance to start again.
© 2024 Jim Greenhalf