A few poems into Brendon Booth-Jones’ debut collection, Vertigo to Go, I thought that here was a worthy winner of Hedgehog Poetry’s ‘White Label Trois Competition’. By the end I was convinced that this was the case! Editor, Mark Davidson, has an eye for talent and Booth-Jones is another impressive addition to Hedgehog’s growing list of accomplished authors. The poems in his collection focus on the semi-autobiographical character, Ash, as he strives to make sense of the world around him and find his place within it.

The world he inhabits is a one of toxic consumerism and hostility. The city heaves with the ‘speed-blur of consumption’. Its inhabitants lead solipsistic, contrived and ultimately self-destructive lives which are conveyed so brilliantly through the description of the customer in Poem Scraped from Greasy Menu: ‘You might snap your ringed fingers with impatience, bark your order for the Salmon Bagel Sensation,/talk loudly…