Tim Key

Key (34) is ideal. He is a poet who favours dark suits, lager and long hot baths. He works on BBC Four in Charlie Brooker’s Newswipe and on Radio 4, doing his late night poetry show. In 2009 he won the Edinburgh Comedy Award for his poetical recital The Slutcracker and has filmed some of his poeticals in black and white to overwhelming critical approval. This is his most comprehensive collection of poems to date.* *NB. I hate writing these. My publisher, a man in his thirties, asked for something from me and I (contractually) had to oblige but really I found the whole thing pretty abhorrent. If it were down to me, which it isn’t (contractually) I would have either had nothing here, or just something simple like a picture of a hen. But that wouldn’t cut it with the man in his thirties. I can just imagine him using phrases like ‘why do you propose we have a hen on the back?’ and ‘read your contract, you have to deliver copy for the back, not suggest an illustration’. But on topics such as this I know there’s more or less no talking to the guy because he has his ‘way of doing things’ and because I am under contract (contractually) to do what he says.