Liam Bates

Monomaniac Liam Bates

In Monomaniac Liam Bates monopolises the prefix mono, each title beginning there, and though the titles are monomorphic the poems are anything but, always offering acute detail and humour. Bates writes with an eye open for the stranger aspects of modern life, confronting the self, adolescence and mental illness, never monotonous, his is a surrealism completely his own, rooted in the more than real. The central paradox here is: must we be defined by a defining moment? When a fifty-foot monolith appears in the garden, for example. Monomaniac showcases a special talent, writing in full technicolour.