Sean Kelly has been described as a grown up poet who lets his inner child stay up late. When they say ‘inner’ child, they’re not being very accurate. Sean’s ‘child’ is less ‘inner’ than ‘so outside that one struggles to see a grown up at all’.

Sean, a Midlander who has recently moved to the North East, has performed in places like Portsmouth, Cheltenham, Birmingham, Oxford, the Lake District and London, and possibly in those very places too (including three visits to Tongue & Grooves). For nearly three years he ran the popular ‘PureandGoodandRight’ poetry night in Leamington Spa, and has run poetry workshops in primary schools and universities.

Once an accountant, now a full time writer and film producer, Sean is keen to produce films and documentaries that promote the poetic form.

He is reluctant to admit that he wrote his best poem when he was ten, and that he has struggled in the ensuing thirty years (+VAT) to come up with a better rhyme than ‘horror and tomorror’, but hopes that audiences will laugh with him or laugh at him as he shares his childhood days and his child-adult’s view of the world.

COMPENSATION CULTURE

when a gambler sues a betting shop for letting people lose
when an alcoholic sues his wife for getting him the booze

when a dustman finds a badger in a bin and sues for shock
when a student’s slip on a greasy chip can leave a school in hock

when a drunken, stripping worker sues her boss for loss of face
when your children need insurance just to run a simple race

when a girl guide sues for fingers burned by sausages at camp
when a man can sue the church for failing all the nation’s tramps

when a prisoner’s right to information means that porn is stocked
when a man who soils his pants can sue because a loo is locked

when an injured burglar sues and wins and states his case so proudly
when a teacher claims a million pounds because her chair farts loudly

when warnings on our purchases show fears that lurk beneath
“you must never use this toilet brush to brush your hair or teeth”

when a cannabis-dealing schoolboy’s paid to have his learning furthered
at a higher rate than compensates parents of a son who’s murdered

when the Magna Carta’s torn apart by European Law
when America’s litigious epidemic’s at our door
when everyone is greedy, out to blame, I ask objectively
where will all this lead?

and what can I claim…
retrospectively?

© Sean Kelly, January 2007