John's ninth collection, Being the Bad Guy, was published by Peterloo in 2007. Fourteen of its poems had previously won prizes in a variety of competitions. Yes, fourteen! Even so, I reckon he was robbed.
'Fattish, baldish, backward-looking and provincial'; his earlier publications include Tennis and Sex and Death and Landscape With Small Humans, both from Peterloo. His Writing Poetry, from A & C Black, deals with such vital questions as : Does modern poetry have to be difficult? Can it rhyme and is it OK to be funny?
Find him at: www.poetrypf.co.uk/johnwhitworthpage.html
(M.P. ed 2008)
Sadly, John Whitworth died on the 20th April 2019. See News. (J.B. ed)