The Evening Entertainment

Poetry. THE EVENING ENTERTAINMENT shifts back and forth through history -- the personal and familial, and that of anonymous characters from recent and ancient past, going about the business of seeking fleeting happiness in their quotidian lives. This debut collection, 30 years in the writing, is divided into three sections. The first features an array of people, from a medieval monk to existential Sussex surfers, engaged in quiet, heroic and sometimes bizarre pastimes; the second travels back to the poet's childhood and early adulthood in suburban London and the North of Ireland; before leading to the final, poignant third section, in which the now-grown speaker must engage with the loss of his father during his battle against dementia.