THE SOPRANOS SONNETS
& OTHER POEMS
The Sopranos is an American drama series featuring a fictional mafia family based in New Jersey, led by the complicated and charismatic Tony Soprano. It premiered on HBO in the United States in 1999. I came to The Sopranos late, in 2009, via the boxed set. When I found myself mourning the brutal death of one of the characters (Adriana), as if she was a close friend, I started writing. The sonnet sequence features ten characters, all of them tangled up with Tony Soprano, the mobster boss.
HOW TO DISMANTLE A HOTEL ROOM
How to Dismantle a Hotel Room was published in 2006 and was, I think, one of the first crowd-sourced poetry collections. I worked with Jonathan Davidson on it and we managed to get 56 subscribers to put their faith in it – for which I am deeply grateful.
GIRLS IN THE DARK
Girls in the Dark was published in 2002 by Dagger Press. The press was run by Brian Morse who was an Eric Gregory Award recipient and a freelance writer and teacher. Brian had many poems broadcast by BBC Schools Radio, for which he wrote several programmes. He was also a Royal Literary Fund fellow and a wonderful man. He died in 2007. Dagger’s pamphlets were beautifully produced. The poems sat on heavyweight cream paper and were set in Goudy, Brian’s favourite typeface. I was delighted to be able to use a Frans Wesselman image as the cover illustration.