We're delighted to announce that the PBS Pamphlet Selectors Degna Stone and A. B. Jackson have chosen Curfuffle by Scott McKendry, published by The Lifeboat, as the PBS Autumn Choice!
‘This is all true bill’ begins Scott McKendry’s Curfuffle. What follows is a phantasmagorical, Technicolour journey through Belfast past and present told by one of the city’s most exciting emerging voices: Fred and Pebbles Flintstone rub shoulders with Dipso McCaw and Speccy Rab; Our Gordie and a Mormon elder ruin plans for an afternoon spent with a tutti-frutti cigarillo wrap stuffed with skunk; Greylag geese are afforded the protection of the local paramilitaries on the Shankill estate and the demon Belphégor (Hell’s Ambassador to France) eggs you on to feed bits of Red Leicester and pickle to a hungry Harpy Eagle.
At its heart, this pamphlet comes to terms with generational trauma, class politics and the rituals and traditions of the poet’s native city. This stunning debut will stay with you and leave you crooning Abba Zaba go-zoom, babbette baboon!
Scott McKendry is currently studying towards a Ph.D. in poetry at Queen’s University Belfast. His poems have appeared in the future always makes me so thirsty: New Poets from the North of Ireland (Blackstaff, 2016), the North, the Tangerine, Public Illumination Magazine, the Manchester Review, Magma, Cyphers, and Poetry Ireland Review.
PBS Members can order copies here and read the PBS Selector's commentary in the Autumn Bulletin later in August. Don't forget to join the PBS before the 15th of August to be on the Autumn mailing list.