The Ballad of the Yorkshire Ripper

Blake Morrison is a British poet and author who has published in a wide range of fiction and non-fiction genres. His greatest success came with the publication of his honest and moving account of his father's life and death, 'And When Did You Last See Your Father? ' He has also written a study of the James Bulger murder, 'As If'. His poetry collection 'Dark Glasses' won a Somerset Maugham Award. Since 2003, Morrison has been Professor of Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. "In 1985 the long poem which stands at the heart of Blake Morrison's second collection, 'The Ballad of the Yorkshire Ripper', appeared in the 'London Review of Books'. Written in Yorkshire dialect and spoken by an unnamed and enigmatic narrator, the poem caused considerable controversy and won Blake Morrison the 1985 Dylan Thomas Memorial Award. Shorter poems in the collection share its vivid contemporaneity, touching on the Sara Tisdall affair, Chernobyl and the US bombing of Libya. But beneath the topicality Blake Morrison contemplates mystery and permanence, celebrating a precarious domesticity and exhibiting that lyric and narrative gift which won praise and prizes for his first collection, 'Dark Glasses'."-back cover.