Roger McGough is the author of over a hundred books of poetry for adults and children. Safety in Numbers is his latest collection. Traversing rocky terrain with the assurance of a poetry Rover on Mars, McGough brings down to earth the strangeness of a time on hold. Staycations, adultery in lockdown, ghosts and gamblers, as well as playful advice to up-and-coming poets. (Don’t do it!) With the gift of many tongues, playful, surreal and tender, McGough ‘a trickster you can trust’ reveals the telling moments of our lives.

President of the Poetry Society, he has been honoured with a CBE for services to literature and the Freedom of the City of Liverpool. After Lily The Pink, the Aintree Iron, Scaffold, GRIMMS, The Mersey Sound with Adrian Henri & Brian Patten and his Molière adaptations with English Touring Theatre, Roger presents the long-running Poetry Please. The beat goes on.

‘The godfather of modern British poetry’ Metro

‘Brilliantly entertaining…a legend’ Chris Hawkins, BBC Radio 6 Music Presenter

‘The patron saint of poetry’ Carol Ann Duffy

‘a true poet who travels deceptively light in what are often the dark places’ T.E.S.

‘A witty and ingenious chronicler of British life with a deftness and agility that is hard to beat’ The Poetry Society