Three Modern Drunk Poets: The Reckless Pilgrimage of Des Gorney, Gavin McGulligan and Ogilvy Mace.
Bubble Press, £9.99.

Barman, buy yourself a drink
And get me one while you're there!
Don't feed me your dogma
Hand over that vodka!
Chill the glass at four below
Pour it straight then sip it slow
The coldest heart gives
The warmest kiss
But its aftertaste
Is the bitterest

So Ogilvy Mace wrote in 'The Bar Stool and the Stars', where the West Country poet realises he has no more money left to buy a drink. He tries to reason with the barman by offering him all his worldly and spiritual possessions, from the poem itself to his spare kidney and his pre-pubescent daughter, in return for another measure of the potent clear spirit.

The manic themes of pleasure and pain infuse Mace's work, collected here with his fellow rakes from their famous drinking odyssey of 2002. In that . . .  read »