July is the lady in blue Skirt and shoes
July is the man in blue Trousers and hats
sky is blue was All those things
across the ancient valley the church bell rings


from 'A Drench for St Swithun's Day'
           

Perfect Catch is a bundle of poems, plays, and collaborations between Ian McMillan and various musicians, theatre groups, radio producers and ordinary and extraordinary people. Poetry is a community art for this writer, not a craft pursued in a lonely room. Like any popular laureate, McMillan knows that every occasion requires a different kind of language, every medium makes different demands. A script can be a poem; it can contain poems. It can be the occasion for poems.

McMillan's poetry always provides snapshots and voiceshots of the modern world (a world rather broader in this volume than ever before, because of the poet's travels). The poems are edged with an artful guile which can gauge the emotional and psychic demands of modern life at the same time as making his readers and audience weep with laughter. He has read in schools, trains, football grounds, radio studios and even stranger locations all over the world.