3 Review(s)

Tony Harrison's v. was written during the Miners' Strike of 1984-85 when he visited his parents' grave in a Leeds cemetery and found it vandalised by obscene graffiti. In the book-length poem, he confronts the foul-mouthed skinhead thug responsible, who becomes a foil for his own anger and alienation. The political and media reaction to v. would make a book in itself. This is that book. As well as Tony Harrison's poem and Graham Sykes's photographs, this new edition of v. includes press articles, letters, reviews, a defence of the poem and film by director Richard Eyre, and a transcript of the phone calls logged by Channel Four on the night of the broadcast. Channel Four's film of v. won the Royal Television Society's Best Original Programme Award.The Star: 'A plan to televise a poem packed with obscenities caused outrage last night. ITV chiefs intend to screen a reading of Tony Harrison's verse v. which is full of four-letter words.'Daily Mail: A torrent of four-letter filth... the most explicitly sexual language yet beamed into the nation's living rooms... the crudest, most offensive word is used 17 times.'Gerald Howarth, MP: 'It is full of expletives and I can't see that it serves any artistic purpose whatsoever.'Mary Whitehouse: 'This work of singular nastiness.'Sir Harold Pinter: 'The criticism against the poem has been offensive, juvenile and, of course, philistine. It should certainly be broadcast.'Sir Richard Eyre: 'If I had the slightest influence over educational policy in this country, I'd see that v. was a set text in every school in the country, but of course if we lived in that sort of country, the poem wouldn't have needed to be written.'