Some of the poems in this collection were first published in these magazines: Ambit, Assaracus, John Clare Society Newsletter, Left Lion, Long Poem Magazine and New Walk. The two Hockney poems were commissioned by Nottingham Contemporary for their first public event (24 November 2009). Other poems first appeared in these books: John Dixon & Jeffrey Doorn (eds.), A Boxful of Ideas: Poetry and Prose by LGBT Writers (Paradise Press, 2016); Tony Roberts (ed.), Poetry in the Blood: Celebrating 20 Years of Shoestring Press (Shoestring Press, 2014); Merryn Williams (ed.), Strike Up the Band: Poems for John Lucas at 80 (Plas Gwyn Books, 2017); and Merryn Williams (ed.), Poems for the Year 2020: Eighty Poets on the Pandemic (Shoestring Press, 2021). Many of the skinny, unrhymed sonnets first appeared in two chapbooks, Very Soon I Shall Know (Shoestring Press, 2012) and Art in Heaven (Sow’s Ear Press, 2015). I’m grateful to Mahendra Solanki and Tim Franks for their early readings of some of the poems.

104 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS