Tom Bailey

Bio

Tom Bailey is a poet, editor and academic whose research focuses on twentieth and twenty-first century poetry and poetics. His debut pamphlet of poems, Please Do Not Touch or Feed the Horses, was published by Poetry London Editions and won an Eric Gregory Award from the Society of Authors. He is also the editor of the online poetry magazine And Other Poems, publishing poetry alongside essays on poetry and poetics.

Contributions

Peer Reviewed
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Clothing and costume are among Denise Riley’s key metaphors, from the white ballet skirt and headdress of her “Liberty Belle” to the synthetic fabrics of poems like “Shantung”, “Rayon” and “Lurex.” [1] Riley’s sartorial metaphors are key to understanding the restless role-playing of Riley’s lyric “I”. Exploring the motif of “trying on” in Riley’s poems, I consider in particular how her sequence “A Part Song” performs a sort of elegiac fancy dress, “do[ing] the bereaved in different voices” and...