A few weeks ago on Haiku Poetry Day, I discovered this little ditty:

"Haiku # 564127"

how dare you suggest
I have a short attention
spanish omelette

Have you heard of Brian Bilston?

If you live in the UK, especially if you’re in Oxford, you might have. But it’s more likely you’ll find him online, where he has half a million followers.  

“The pseudonymous Brian Bilston turns the base metal of comic verse into gold,” a perfect description from The Guardian about ‘the Banksy of contemporary poetry’.

Brian began writing poetry in his mid-late 20s, for himself and to celebrate family occasions. Listening to Tara Stubbs interview him in a podcast, I found out that he started more comedic verse while working in marketing and sales and listening to gobbledygook sentences. Perhaps his pen was forced by sentences like this: “Our unique, proven and collaborative approach of combining doctorate level theoretical analytics, strategy and world-class creative execution delivers ground-breaking, game-changing initiatives for ambitious brands.”

At some point, he turned to writing poetry full-time, drawing upon the nonsense verse of Edward Lear, British performance poets and comedians, primarily Roger McCough and also John Hegley and John Cooper Clarke, and one of my personal favourites, the American poet laureate Billie Collins. Being shy and lacking confidence, Brian chose a pseudonym that’s a spoof on football, referencing the town of Bilston that often has comedic match reporting.

Immediately after the podcast, I ordered the three books of Brian’s poetry available at the VPL, bought and downloaded a copy of Alexa, What is There to Know about Love, and from Blackwell’s, ordered his latest book, How to Lay an Egg with a Horse Inside. And started reading more of his doggerel poetry online, like this one that he posted last year on International Haiku Day.

“On Tender Hooks”

Let me cut to the cheese:
every time you open your mouth,
I’m on tender hooks.

You charge at the English language
like a bowl in a china shop.
I wish you’d nip it in the butt.

On the spurt of the moment,
another eggcorn tumbles out.
It’s time you gave up the goat.

Curve your enthusiasm
and don’t give them free range –
or the chickens will come home to roast.

Sorry to be the flaw
in your ointment. You must think me
a damp squid, I suppose –

but they spread like wildflowers
in a doggy-dog world,
and your spear of influence grows.

“Mrs Plato” had us wide-mouthed (the risqué!) and laughing out loud. (Magellan discovered there was no Mrs Plato, which made us laugh even more.)

At supper when Plato says he’s been thinking about love and “moving things to the next level,” Mrs Plato thinks:

I wondered whether I should get
the goat butter out.
But then he began to prattle
about truth and virtue and whatnot
and I thought better of it;
it goes rancid ever so quick in this heat.

When I worked in the travel industry, we had to use the NATO phonetic alphabet when communicating how to spell a word over the phone: Alpha for A, Bravo for B, Charlie for C….  Here are a few lines from Brian’s “As Easy as Alpha Bravo Charlie”:

Aside from all the usual cataclysms,
there is little that fills me with more
unease
than the question asked, when on the
phone,
“Can you spell that for me, please?’

…

I suppose I should take my time. Pause.
Think a while.
But no. “A,” I will blurt out, ‘as in…aisle.’

Here are a few of Brian’s magician-like wordplays with food.

“Remembrance of Things Pasta”

She blew her fusilli,
my pretty penne

“Better Late Than Never”
III
Chickpea fanatic
Seeks similar. Requirements:
Good sense of humous.

“Poetic License”

Not being well-versed
In the world of poetry,
A pastry chef,
By the name of Geoff
Went to purchase
A poetic license
In order to surprise
His patrons
With chicken
And mushrhyme pies.

This one had us giggling, too. Can’t you picture a patient on a couch confessing this to his psychotherapist?

It was shortly after I moved into the
glasshouse
that I began to throw stones.

And here’s one of his shape poems:

"Fall"

She loved to catch

the falling leaves

in autumn

   she

                 would

        sit

and wait

   under               trees

     until

                  she'd

   cautumn 

In his interview with Tara, Brian says he feels poetry is often treated too reverentially, that poetry should get to lots of people, “not just to a handful who think they’re clever”. His huge presence on social media reflects this position, though it has its drawbacks. A poem taking aim at guns in America that was posted on Facebook resulted in him receiving a death threat.

Not all of Brian’s poems are comedic. Tara, in the interview, pointed out how much she liked his poem “Frisbee.” You can see why.

Frisbee whizzing
through the air
above our heads
over the sand
into the water
onto the waves
out to sea.

You cried a lot that day.
Frisbee was a lovely dog.

Tara also mentioned this one:

"Refugees"

They have no need of our help
So do not tell me
These haggard faces could belong to you or me
Should life have dealt a different hand
We need to see them for who they really are
Chancers and scroungers
Layabouts and loungers
With bombs up their sleeves
Cut-throats and thieves
They are not
Welcome here
We should make them
Go back to where they came from
They cannot
Share our food
Share our homes
Share our countries
Instead let us
Build a wall to keep them out
It is not okay to say
These are people just like us
A place should only belong to those who are born there
Do not be so stupid to think that
The world can be looked at another way

(now read the above poem from bottom to top)

Levity in the absurdity. As another famous Brit, Sir Thomas Moore, once said, “Let us imagine care of the soul, then, as an application of poetics to everyday life.”

Navigation

Bilston, Brian. Alexa, What is There to Know about Love? London: Picador, 2021.

Brian Bilston Facebook.

Brian Bilston Instagram

Brian Bilston website.

“Demystifying Poetry”. Tara Stubbs Podcast. January 22, 2025.