Author of ‘Hunter in a World of Farmers‘
Alfie Shoyger was born in 1980 to a working-class London family and with ADHD, a condition that some have suggested marks him out as a hunter in a world of farmers.
Wandering from home in London to university in Norwich to squatted buildings in Bristol to teaching English in Germany and Poland, he has in any case always remained a misfit.
This is reflected in his poetry, which mostly eschews the free verse mode of his day to concentrate on rhymes, metres, wordplay and poetic structure.
From lofty pedestals, you tell me that I’m sick, abnormal.
You say my mind’s distorted with disorder, with disease.
You sneer that I’m a weirdo, you complain my brain cells dawdle,
you moan, “Why won’t you swing and somersault on Life’s trapeze?”
You moan, “Why won’t you comb your hair and climb that sparkling ladder
up to a mortgage in the sky and spotless mental health?
Why won’t you woo and date and court and watch confetti scatter?
It’s easy! Why won’t you just be like everybody else?”
Cerasus Poetry 