Read a book. Twas good.

Does anyone out there know how to keep abreast of decent modern poetry? (I always say I love poetry, and then over time it feels like posing and just something I say, and then I read some and remember. All the bloody time.) My internet skills are above average and yet I have no idea what/where to monitor.

Anyway, today I read Laura Dockrill's Mistakes in the background after being enchanted on a flick-through. Dockrill's an illustrator as well as a poet, so much of the time poetry crosses over into cartoons into comic strips - the whole book is an experience to hold and read to yourself, rather than being simply textual, a sort of final rejection of the recitation ideal (this poetry does not apologise for being written down and bound). She writes about everyone - mums dads, children, snails, the one nerdy bloke in an office - though I'll admit that one of the main reasons I like her is that she sounds like someone so definitely of my generation (and has to be from in or around London). She talks about Salad Fingers for Christ's sake... The collection is unrepentantly light-hearted, but there's still an everyday sort of darkness underneath it all, ready to strike if you start thinking about things too hard.

Also? The book includes a free sheet of wrapping paper and a page of stickers!!

Imagine this in handwriting, with the illustration of a girl holding an arm over her face (ETA: or look at this Amazon picture):

"Why am I so stubborn
???"
She asked, ramming her fingers
into the jar of silver skinned
onions - all the glossed up and
slippery, made her thumbs numb
and vinegary -
a food that bit back ... HARD.
"Perhaps" Said her mother,
"You were once a pickled onion yourself -
forever avoiding to be jarred."