BERT FLITCROFT

SEEING THE LIGHT 

Bert Flitcroft's fourth collection of poems is published on 1st December 2024 and is available to pre-order now.. . Orders received by 15th November will be dispatched on 1st December.
Bert writes life as he sees it, with humour, humanity and a welcome lack of sentimentality. He pinpoints moments in life when the everyday reveals existential problems in a new light. Bert’s poems fall on the ear (and the page) with a freshness and confidence that makes it clear that he believes that life is for living, marriage is for loving, and art is for understanding and communicating and bearing witness to any breaking of the moral code: ‘Do no harm’.

And what a communicator we meet in Bert Flitcroft! Conversational, meditative or playful, each poem in this collection is honed to optimal effect, with apparent ease. For example, his awareness of the complexity of human character enables him to set up an echo between his sudden childhood recognition of power and cruelty in ‘Innocence’, and ‘Witness’ in which in one of today’s war-zones,
                                 A uniform steps down from the rubble,
                                 casts a cold glance at the seemingly
                                 taunting figure and decides
                                 he has the power ...
And cold-bloodedly shoots civilians shopping, cycling past... In ‘Ode to Arnold Bennett’ we read Bert Flitcroft’s admiration of
                                   ... a man who understood
                                   how we suffer the paradox of love,
                                   The sweetness and the gall
                                   the endless give and relentless take...
 
For Bert Flitcroft, ‘Seeing the Light’ is a matter of acknowledging paradox, speaking to it and asking the questions to which all of us look for answers. His ‘Offering advice to a grown-up daughter’ is one of my favourites in this collection: he admits:
                                     My heart would like to say 'do this....do that’,
                                     but the only thing I know is making choices bravely,
                                     without fear. Love your life and run your race
                                     your own way. No regrets. No looking back.
​
Roger Elkin comments :
"Replete with all aspects of life from bike riding to ballet, pottery to fishing, quantum physics, moon walking, death and going to heaven, and so much more, this collection - Bert Flitcroft’s fourth - celebrates “the poetry of our lives”, its “detritus and truths”.  Exploring the “comfortable silences” that exist within the differences of things that constitute the full range of human existence, the poems display a wide range of emotion - from serious philosophising, and “seeing, using your eyes”, to humorous, almost comedic, insights. A similar width of poetic structure and expressive powers successfully illuminates these searching and life-enhancing poems. There’s compassion, commitment, questioning and bundles of common sense. The writing is immediate and accessible but is in no way patronising or condescending: I ensure you there will be more than a single occasion when “a poem will bring a little ‘Yes!’ "

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Paperback, 148 x 210mm, 92 pages, ISBN ​9781917101110

JUST ASKING 

“Class-conscious, linguistically alive, wonderfully situated, the poems of  JUST ASKING grab us by the scruff of the neck and drag us into their world. Whether their subjects are friends or mushrooms, museums or pumping stations, this is a poetry full of personality, great openings and highly effective endings. 'My life is full of conversations I do not have', says the speaker of one poem, but this writing is full of voices we are grateful to hear. Now comic, now melancholic, always companionable, always insightful, these are highly enjoyable, deeply rewarding poems.”
—Jonathan Edwards
​
“Bert Flitcroft's latest collection, JUST ASKING, is grounded with the poet's acknowledgement of the importance of the personal, the domestic and the intimate.
Here King Lear and The Angel of the North rub shoulders in electric storms; Camus philosophises with his wife about football; while Einstein, Mao and Marx sit alongside poems featuring Peppa Pig, Sainsbury's and the Co-op.Whether exploring memories of growing up, the delights of parenthood, the demands of love, the industrial legacy of machinery and engines, the specialness of landscape and the natural world, and the challenge of mortality, Bert Flitcroft uses his finely-honed poetic sensibilities to transform the fleeting and transient into something essentially real and memorable. The fresh imagery and perceptive visual description underpinned by a keen wit reveal a strongly-individual poetic voice, whose wisdom is both worldly and warm. Its honesty, humanity and positivity are exceptional, and make this collection one to savour, cherish and re-read."                                           
— Roger Elkin
 
 “I enjoyed JUST ASKING for its poetry of conviction, of place, of injustice which is all served up with compassion, and the bite of wit. A hugely enjoyable experience which I’d recommend to all who seek a complex appreciation of our beloved isle.”
— Daljit Nagra

​ “Bert Flitcroft is an honest, genuine writer - his poems are accessible without being simplistic, honed and well-crafted without being clever, eschewing obscurity in favour of direct and clear human speech which has the ring of true poetry, much in the manner of Edward Thomas and Robert Frost.”
— David Calcutt

'Just Asking' by Bert Flitcroft
ISBN 978-1-913329-35-8
Paperback, 14 x 21cm, 78 pages
RRP £10.00

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Bert Flitcroft was born and brought up in Lancashire but now lives in the Midlands. He has two collections of poetry published by other publishers: Singing Puccini at the Kitchen Sink and Thought-Apples. His work has appeared in a number of national magazines. He is a prize-winning poet, has been Poet in Residence at the Southwell Poetry Festival and has performed at a number of national festivals including The Edinburgh International Book Festival. He was Staffordshire Poet Laureate 2015–17, and curated the on-line Staffordshire Poetry Collection. He has worked as resident poet with one of our ‘National Treasures’, The Wedgwood Collection at the V&A; as resident poet with the prestigious R.I.B.A exhibition ‘The Road Less Travelled’; and recently as part of the University of Keel project ‘Labelling the Museum’.