The Beauty Of Brian Bilston’s Poetry

Have you heard of Brian Bilston?

Brian Bilston is often referred to as the ‘Poet Laureate of Twitter’ – and he is quite enigmatic in that people don’t know a huge amount about him. Just recently, I acquired his latest collection – Days Like These: An alternative guide to the year in 366 poems. This is a perfect book of poems which takes each day of each month and explores something linked to that day (in the form of a poem). We’re now in February, often a cold, wintry month, and these are some of my favourites for the second month of the year:

10th February

Believe it or not, this was World Pulse Day – a day which globally recognised the importance of pulses (such as beans). Bilston starts this poem with ‘To set pulses racing/is not quite as exciting as it sounds’ and he continues with many references to various types of beans. So, if you are interested in pulses and want to know a bit more about ‘black belugas’ and ‘favas’, read this poem!

17th February

I didn’t know that this day is ‘Random Acts of Kindness’ day – but what a lovely idea. So, you could ‘help old ladies cross the road… nurse to health an injured toad… make someone with joy explode…’ if you so wish. What’s lovely about this poem is Bilston’s playful use of language. I think we could all do with a few more random acts of kindness, and perhaps having a designated day for such things is the way forward.

26th February

Well, this was the day that John Harvey Kellogg (think cornflakes) was born in 1852. Here, Bilston writes about the virtues of Kellogg’s Cornflakes*. He says how he might receive ‘… a lifetime’s supply of cornflakes’ (would you want this many – surely they’d go stale!?) but, somewhat controversially, he also writes about Cheerios – ‘… the wholegrain Os which make my mornings ooze with oomph…’ which he obviously enjoys.

So, here you have some interesting facts about days in February, all tied in with modern poetry. Look up Brian Bilston online – I hope you will like his writing as much as I do.

*Other brands are available