This week’s Book of the Week is perhaps one of the most important collections in years, shining a light on the reality of the last year. Brian McManus’ ‘Liar Liar’ is a clear and precise examination of 2020, and what it did to you and I and where we were let down, again and again, by our politicians.
Brian McManus is a special poet, and I’m pleased to say that you can now visit his new web site HERE.
“Liar Liar” is a much-needed response to the myriad of dangers we all face in an increasingly challenging Covid world, and examines the disturbing lack of coherent response to that challenge from our constitutional governments and how the people of the UK and USA in particular have suffered, often times paying with their lives.
Brian McManus paints compelling lyrical word pictures of the distressing tales of ordinary, everyday people who find their lives torn asunder, and the dearth of both intellect and ability amongst our political leadership for managing and directing a meaningful response to such an all-encompassing pandemic.
If you haven’t read a book of poetry for a while you need to pick this one up – today.
About Brian McManus
Brian McManus lives on the outskirts of Glasgow with his wife and enjoys the company of his children and grandchildren who live nearby. As a former Serious Crime Squad Detective Officer Brian played a central role in the international criminal enquiry following the terrorist bombing of a Pan Am jet airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988 with the loss of 270 lives. His collection of poetry, prose and photographs recounting the events of those times was published as Blue Daze, Black Knights – The Story of Lockerbie in 1999. Having now stepped away from the world of work, Brian spends his time reading and writing poetry reflecting on our increasingly challenging world, and in his own small way holding to account those who abdicate their responsibility for managing it and the lack of support for those who inhabit it. Liar Liar, his latest book of poems, are the latest sure-footed steps on Brian’s very important journey, which includes other previous work published in past and pending poetry publications and online. Upcoming poetry projects will include a major focus on the impacts of climate change on our planet and ourselves, of the near prospect of an uninhabitable earth due to intolerable temperatures and rising sea levels and all that along with the ostensible minutiae which feeds into and disproportionately affects all of our lives on a daily basis. Staying healthy in a Covid environment presents its own challenges right across the globe and the poetry pamphlet Liar Liar looks closely at the impacts on the western world and in particular the UK and the USA and the dearth of both intellect and ability amongst our political leadership for managing and directing a meaningful response to such an all-encompassing disease. The increasingly rapid decline of western civilisation and the imminent threats and danger to the existing world order will form yet another investigative strand in an increasingly complex response through the medium of poetry.
“Brian McManus in ‘Liar Liar’ provides a sardonic account of the country’s response to Covid-19: the poems describe medics resorting to ‘council bin bags’ as makeshift PPE, the betrayal of the elderly in care homes, the dishonesty of empty-headed political leaders, the ruthless exploitation of big business and the end of the age of certainties. Every disaster needs its commentators to keep our memories of such times alive and to hold those responsible to account. McManus does that. Yet the pamphlet still ends on a positive note: he suggests that it is the love and compassion of individuals that will ultimately see us through.
These poems are a lasting memorial ‘for those not coming back’: McManus’ account of the Pandemic will surely last longer than the careers of the incompetent leaders he describes.”
Nigel Kent, author of ‘Psychopathogen’ and ‘Saudade’.
Product details
- ISBN-10 : 1913499553
- Book: 20 pages
- ISBN-13 : 978-1913499556
- Order Signed Copies direct from Brian McManus by contacting him HERE – Signed copies are available direct from Brian for £5.99 with all proceeds being donated to the homeless charity Crisis at Christmas.
I asked Brian a few questions about Liar Liar…
1. What was the inspiration for the collection and how long did it take to come together?
The inspiration for the collection was two-fold. Firstly, to hold to account in my own small way Boris Johnston and his inept ministers for the egregious manner in which they have mishandled the Covid pandemic and cost people enormous harm and on some occasions, their lives. I also wanted to provide
a voice on behalf of those people, and in fact on behalf of all of us, to address the injustice we have suffered and to push into the public domain a record of sorts of what has gone on, and towards the latter part of the “collection” to offer a path forward for us in terms of community spirit, togetherness
etc. In terms of time, it came together within a few months due in part to my deliberately repetitive writing process, and my continual editing and fine-tuning.
2. How did you get involved with writing poetry – is there a ‘literary tradition’ in your family?
There is no great literary tradition in my family, although I did find out by chance that my great-grandfather was a poet and had sent home some poems in the late 1800’s when he sailed off from the Broomielaw in Glasgow to make his fortune in America.
My interest in poetry was triggered by my involvement and indeed immersion in a major negative life event, the Lockerbie bombing in 1988 with the loss of 270 lives. I was involved in that from the night of the downing of Pan Am flight 103 right though the following 4 years as a central player in the international criminal enquiry which followed. I was drawn to record my experiences and my thoughts through the medium of poetry thereafter, which was a fairly intense, cathartic process, and which resulted in the publication of the book “Blue Daze, Black Knights – the Story of Lockerbie”.
3. Are you a ‘researcher’ or is your work more imagination-driven?
I am very much a researcher and most of my work in based on the examination and consideration of real-life events, their impact on us and society, and what the lessons to be learned, if any, are. I also feel a compulsion to offer a record of such events in my own words, usually triggered by emotion. If life is a dance, then emotion is the music of that dance.
4. Tell us something about the book that nobody has mentioned that they have noticed yet
I tend to write about trauma of one sort of another and although I like my poetry to be accessible, I like the reader to have to do some work of their own to uncover any deeper meaning or message of sorts contained below the surface of the words. So in that respect and to answer your question, I think
it’s a difficult one for me to answer, the answer probably best coming from the reader.
5. What is the best comment about the book that you have heard or read?
I have been fortunate in that the book has been positively reviewed but I think on a personal level the best comment I have heard was following my live reading of the wok on a Zoom launch, where the intensity of the subject matter and the “courage” it must have taken to write it was commented upon.