Transmissions

This book made such an impression on me. It made me uneasy and enlightened at the same time.Firstly I love the way it is arranged in a kind of chronology, we follow the writer's life path during a chaotic, grim and alarming period - a story within a story. It is a book of poems and vignettes of Chris's time on the streets in all it's bleak complexity. The theme of perpetually reeling relentlessly from desperation, fear, confusion and humiliation to euphoria and a state of being cocooned in care-less warmth with heroin use and addiction, which plunges him into a subterranean space, is a spectacular poetic journal that brings to mind the work of Charles Bukowski.It's not a particularly uncommon story but the added burden of the undiagnosed schizophrenia weaves it's terrifying thread within the narrative and I feel on edge and paralysed as an uncomfortable voyeur.The story he writes after being sectioned under the Mental Health Act made me laugh. Chris writes with an unsettling dark humour which is really surprisingly engaging. An art therapy scene with Harriet, a teacher 'exuding liberal kindness' had me laughing and cringing at the same time, just divine comedy.Chris's work is not at all stylistic or pastiche despite me thinking of Bukowski, it is just extremely straight, bare bones honesty. Raw, unpretentious, refreshing.Here is a man who has travelled on a wretched and dismal life-changing journey, relating his experience and making it beautiful in all it's sordid distress and torment. This is the unique skill and victory.The illustrations are exceptional, idiosyncratic and harrowing.Chris Bird has talent not so much in the way that the poet has made a sacrifice for his art, his art transcends his rough and harrowing experiences naturally, yet could only have been conceived from them.A courageous tapestry of tumultuous life events, this autobiographical portrait deserves recognition. I highly recommend.

I love this book. It's one that percolates long after the end. Chris is naked throughout. What you see is punctured life in London at its edges. Freedom is exposed as cursed and exalting. In spite of being locked in a deep soup of survival, through its spine Chris's humour provides a pure beauty.

Thought provokingly jarring to those of us living in privileged comfort and stable mental health. Chris Bird's poetry and prose written as a reflection of a time of turmoil and homelessness in his life, (probably solely due to an undiagnosed mental health condition), speaks dolefully and disturbingly to us as an audience with a brief window into his world.His portrayal of gritty survival at any cost, of social and system brutality, vulnerability, trust in desperate friendships and self-medication through drug addiction and therapy is both gripping and perturbing. Yet his quiet strength and humour always lurks surreptitiously or overtly on every page like a beacon of vitality. This is not a man to be pitied. We understand that he is imparting knowledge, a skilled storyteller of significant life occurrences. His 'tell it as it is' methodology belies a gracefulness of technique which is accessible even to the most unindoctrinated of poetry.I read this book by accident, after having it lying around the house almost. I am glad I picked it up, casually aiming to flick through its pages. I discovered a lot. I was safely transported to a place I never hope to be; I laughed, I despaired, I even shed tears but above all I learned about a little known but extraordinarily accomplished writer, artist and poet. May we be blessed with more of his offerings.