Can I Come Down Now, Dad? - John Hegley

Advantages: The world's best poet?
Disadvantages: Not up to his regular form

...enjoyable poets on the database, Can I Come Down Now, Dad? is probably the worst one he’s written. (Although, note ~ theediscerning hasn’t caught up with the last one or two yet.) That isn't to say it isn't a very decent read, for it is. It's just that here the brilliant wordplay and forceful rhythms take a back-seat, for what the back cover calls "pathos". Well, perhaps suppose it was a sign of Mr Hegley maturing a bit, or certainly branching ...
...Hegley recite his work you can immediately pick up any of his pieces and hear him say it in his unique style in your head. Here, though, the way he commonly forces the rhymes and metre together in constantly humorous clashes, is much reduced. Theediscerning is always loathe to give quotes as examples, for two reasons ~ most poems are so short he would have to copy the whole poem, and Mr Hegley might not be too happy, and two, the original op didn’t ... Read review