PREACHER! Vanity Games
a verse commentary on Ecclesiastes
Adrian May
The scathing, yet poetic verses of The Book of Ecclesiastes have long had an attraction for writers, from TS Eliot to Pete Seeger in his song Turn! Turn! Turn! Adrian May’s verse commentary tries for the same satiric tone as the original, which makes it different from most contemporary poetry. Undermining, sweary at times, he attempts to capture the tough-tender energy of his model.
‘Tough-minded, deeply moving, it sings out to the world (and is therefore deeply unfashionable). I thoroughly enjoyed it. Full of energy and an interesting form of anger and profound compassion. Great stuff.’
– Chris McCully, poet and Professor of Creative Writing, University of Essex
Adrian May is the author of four collections of songs and poems, An Essex Attitude, Ballads of Bohemian Essex, Comedy of Masculinity and Discovering England (all Wivenbooks Press), and a trilogy of books on writing: Myth and Creative Writing, The Magic of Writing, and Tradition in Creative Writing (Palgrave, 2021).See adrianmay.org.uk
Rosewood Pocket Classics No 1
Adrian has made song versions of two of the poems from the collection.
A Seeger Turn
Cast Your Bread
You can buy Preacher! here.