Martian Arts
Jonathan Raban, 23 July 1987
The Ballad of the Yorkshire Ripper
by Blake Morrison.
Chatto, 48 pp., £4.95, May 1987,0 7011 3227 2 Show More
by Blake Morrison.
Chatto, 48 pp., £4.95, May 1987,
“... iambic pentameter stiffens a pleasant holiday conceit and gives it seriousness and point:Ten miles above the tits at St TropezA satellite’s remote, panoptic eyeIs tracking us and quietly waiting forThe gesture that could culminate in war;You scratch your nose, I finish my ice-creamAnd screw the silver paper in the sand.Your milky skin is tanning like a ... ”