"I get nervous for Mark Waldron's readers – I can hear them begin to laugh a little, becoming too comfortable too quickly, while reading a poem of his and I want to warn them. I want to yell at them to get out of the way, tell them that what's really happening is that they are about to get their hearts broken. Poor monkeys." — Matthew Dickman, author of Wonderland

'Waldron’s fifth collection brims with metaphysical satire, and the reader may laugh uncomfortably, looking into the shadows of the world s/he inhabits ... It seems to be the cyclical and slippery nature of life that motivates Waldron, alongside his quirky humour.' – Mary Mulholland, The Alchemy Spoon, on A Straight Up Giant

‘Clearly, Waldron has enough wit and imagination to sink a battleship, but perhaps the most interesting thing about his work is the use to which he puts features widely disseminated in contemporary poetry: randomness, whimsy, play and inconsequence…. When Waldron exploits these traits and turns them inside out, he shows an impressive elegance and rhetorical power, sustained despite a blizzard of broken registers and bits of this and that. His work reveals an authority it might at first seem far from seeking. The outcome is poetry that might count for something.’ – Sean O’Brien, The Guardian, on Meanwhile Trees

‘His special skill is comedy, but not the standup sort. His speakers expose themselves self-accusingly, defiantly, or bashfully, while at the same time seeming snug as bugs in their tightly interlocked chainmail of precise language….  And there lies the delight of the collection: it gives us a rare sense of the Elizabethan richness of an English that’s available right now. Underneath the defamiliarising ingenuity, the political pretension-pricking and all the narrative verve and swerve, the diction is the real star of this invigorating book.’ – Carol Rumens, Observer, Poetry Book of the Month [on Meanwhile, Trees]

‘He has since been publishing books steadily every few years and his latest, Sweet, Like Rinky-Dink, continues to develop his distinctive voice…. [an] accomplished and entertaining collection that showcases Waldron’s mercurial poetic voice.’ – Kit Toda, Times Literary Supplement

Mark Waldron was born in New York in 1960 and grew up in London. He works in advertising and lives in East London with his wife and son. He began writing poetry in his early 40s. He published two collections with Salt, The Brand New Dark (2008) and The Itchy Sea (2011), which were followed by two from Bloodaxe, Meanwhile, Trees (2016) and Sweet, like Rinky-Dink (2019). His fifth collection, A Straight Up Giant, is published by Bloodaxe in 2023.

    11     Panic Room
    13     Hippopotami at the Water Hotel
    16     Swapping Clothes with a Friend
    18     How a Poem Works
    19     (Implacable doom-trod sky notwithstanding
    21     A Feather in My Cap
    23     Tender is the born
    25     A Trap or a Net

eleven grim poems
    29     Blossom
    30     The Garrulous Horse
    31     The Bitten Ball
    33     A Goodly Fly
    34     gone off
    35     The Traumatised Fox
    38     The Woodman Prince
    40     Fungi
    42     The Piece of String
    46     Little Men
    48     The Princess and the Pea

    51     Is it Honey
    53     Burn Down
    55     Contingency
    57    In the wayward place
    60     When you were dead
    63     Puppetry
    66     The Trees
    67     No kind of cow
    69     Quids in
    71     We listened to the cows
    73     I adore
    74     I miss

I am not a bad bird
    77     Marcie says
    79     Marcie says
    80     Marcie says
    81     Marcie says
    82     Marcie says

    85     Bluebottle Modus Operandi
    88     Cadavre Exquis
    89     Turkey Shoot
    91     All your life is out
    93     Henry
    95     A Poisonous Midnight
    98     Hôtel des Champignons
    104     Crocodeelio
    106     I don’t know
    108     Bacon and Egg