Paul McDonald will be known to many in Walsall as the author of a trilogy of comic novels based in his hometown: Surviving Sting (2001), Kiss Me Softly Amy Turtle (2004), and Do I Love You? (2008).
They achieved spectacular reviews and sales, and are considered classics of Black Country fiction. In addition to his career as a novelist, however, McDonald is also an accomplished poet whose work has won numerous international awards, including most recently the Liverpool Poetry Prize judged by Roger McGough.
His latest book, 60 Poems, has just appeared from Greenwich Exchange Press and collects work from the last decade. Walsall continues to be a theme, as can be seen in poems like 'Hatherton Lake', a moving piece about Walsall Arboretum, and 'A Walsall Man Spots a Stranded Seal', which was a prizewinner in this year's Wolverhampton Literature Festival Competition.
But his interests as a poet extend beyond the region: poems about the natural world, urban life, and art, feature alongside confessional poems, and work that employs McDonald's characteristic humour. If you're looking for poems about Captain America, electricity pylons, or Rimbaud’s hair, for instance, this is the place to come. 60 Poems reinforces McDonald's status as a sensitive and significant commentator on the human condition, and is available from all good bookshops.
