JOHN F B TUCKER

Biography

My fifth poem collection with Chipmunka (the mental health publishers) is being formatted for publication and brought out as I write. The four I have done with them already are: Soundcloud Rain (which is a book of songs); The Sunset Child (which I wrote at seven); Breath Trapped In Heaven (which is all love poems); Brave New Tense (which is about water). I'm not too displeased with them but still, I wasn't getting them right. As I say, now I am bringing out a fifth called Yes You May. It's being formatted as we speak. I also tried my hand at philosophy, bringing out three volumes of a book called Transition To Philosophy recently under a pen-name (Johannes Bergfors) but I got bored of that and still felt poetic. There were also many self-publications from before the Chipmunka collections which were brought out under the name John F B Tucker (as opposed to just John Tucker). It's the Chipmunka four - soon to be five - by John Tucker - that I would be most inclined to count as comprising my poetry career, though I would never describe it as a career. I also play music as a singer-songwriter and have about 9 amateurish albums online. My music never got further than the early demo stage, so it's nice to have been lucky enough to be a poet as well. Where I go from here in terms of a sixth collection I do not know. My favourite poem books include Michael Hofmann's Selected Poems, anything by the New York School especially James Schuyler, Paradise Lost by Milton, Blake's Songs, Allen Ginsberg, anything by Ted Hughes especially 'Crow', Arthur Rimbaud, TS Eliot, local poet Norman Nicholson, The Lords and The New Creatures by Jim Morrison, the early work of Charles Simic, a modicum of Bukowski (but only a little bit), a little bit of Paul Muldoon, and various others too. I used to read Simon Armitage quite a bit as well. I also really like Geoffrey Hill who says "the law is grace" and thinks of poetry as "sacred scriptures" even in the Modern World. The most recent poet I read was Lucretius, a Latinate poet who discussed the atom in a world before Christ. It was good to get through it and add it to my list of things I had conquered from antiquity; but still I don't read as much poetry as I used to, and probably not enough to survive as a poet. Of my contemporaries I quite like Sam Riviere, Simon Pomery, Rachael Allen, Hannah Sullivan, Kaveh Akbar and a few more. When it comes to the question of what will last, stand the test of time, I don't think I will for instance. Professor David Morley (on whom I did my undergraduate dissertation) says nobody from the last 100 years apart from Ted Hughes and Charles Tomlinson will last. Living in the Lakes I should be New Romantic but traveling a lot in my youth I found myself to be more New Beat. Now I just reside at the foot of the Lakeland's oldest fell, never going anywhere anymore. In my over-medicated head, I haven't yet formed an idea as to what a sixth collection should look like and it might well be that my new one Yes You May is actually my last. I almost forgot to mention that I sometimes have poems individually published in a reputable, online, literary webzine called Snakeskin. Some 31 poems have now been individually published by them in their monthly mag; but I think they are awful and so keep neglecting to put them in a book.

Samples

UNPLUGGED IN THE BLUE ROOM Sullen, silken sulks, we drink the same rain, spit is clean and so it dirt.

All poems are copyright of the originating author. Permission must be obtained before using or performing others' poems.

Blog entries by JOHN F B TUCKER

LOST MINIATURE DREAMS (09/09/2025)

SKUNKFOOT (04/09/2025)

THAT BLACK NATURAL E (25/08/2025)

Blog link: https://www.writeoutloud.net/blogs/johnfbtucker

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