After Engine Trouble

By Luke Wright

With one eye on social media and another on mental well-being, Luke Wright looks under the hood of a spluttering nation. Eschewing the formal verse structures of his previous two collections, Wright presents free-wheeling splenetic poems on the joys of pretentiousness, late-night carb-heavy FOMO, and the lay-bys and bypasses of a country that 'doesn't make anything anymore.' Shout these poems aloud in pubs, or whisper them in B&Bs. Keep an eye on the ones you love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rough Trade Books
• Release date: Jun 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781912722594

Luke Wright

“Performance poetry’s key revivalist.” Metro Luke Wright writes bawdy bar room ballads about small town tragedies and Westminster rogues. His fast paced, witty poems are crammed full of yummy mummies, debauched Tory grandees, maudlin commuters and leering tabloid paps. His live shows are enjoyed by thousands of people across the world every year, where he mixes the wistful with the downright comic to take audiences on an incredible emotional journey. Since 2006 he has written and performed eight one man shows, touring them to top literary and arts festivals from Australia to Scotland via Hong Kong and Bruges. In 2015 his debut play (in which he also starred) What I Learned From Johnny Bevan won a prestigious Fringe First Award at The Edinburgh Fringe, also bagged Luke The Stage Award for Acting Excellence. In 2017, his second full poetry collection - The Toll - was published by Penned in the Margins and toured the UK. Luke Wright's second verse play, Frankie Vah, debuted at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2017, with publication and a national tour to follow in 2018.

Book preview

Good Morning Britain

Good Morning Britain!

It’s grey and it’s shit

it’s Twitter for breakfast

it’s hatred and hissy fits.

So reach for your phone

here’s what you’ve missed

slap on the telly

scream at your kids.

Good Morning Britain!

Caffeine shot,

protein bomb,

the trans fat of news.

Here’s Piers Morgan

and he’s singing the blues:

You can’t say anything these days

You can’t say anything these days

And yet somehow you still manage to, Piers.

Good Morning Britain!

Where we don’t like each other any more

we’re trans activists in TERF wars

or brexit-boomers venting spleens

at all of Corbyn’s triggered teens.

Incel Inside.

An empathy famine

from snowflakes to gammon:

No platform,

that’s cancelled

she’s cancelled,

err… he’s cancelled

cranking up the public shame.

Cancellations and no platforms?

Shit, we’re worse than Southern Trains!

Morrissey wakes and Morrissey says:

Whatever Anne-Marie has done,

I have done.

Gawd bless ya Stephen Patrick

everyone loves an expat Brexiteer.

Emigrants against the immigrants!

You couldn’t make it up.

(well, obviously you could,

but why would you want to?)

Good Morning Britain

let’s see those teeth

bent double under Grenfell’s blackened jaw

Oh that thing was such an eyesore.

Now cuffs are slapped on wrists

that worked in hospitals for thirty years or