Book Review: You Took The Last Bus Home by Brian Bilston

This collection titled ‘You Took The Last Bus Home’ by Brian Bilston is a funny collection of poems. Although this style of humour is quite distinct. Its almost based on punch lines and borderline dry jokes/ mixed with office humour. Nonetheless, I found the irony and the goofiness of the poems amusing because it did make me laugh.

What was my favourite piece in the collection?

My favourite poem in the collection is ‘For We Shall Stare at Mobile Phones’ which light-heartedly focuses on the increase usage of mobile phones and its effects on ‘attractions’ that will ‘close’ due to the attention in which people pay to their phone. This piece ends with a paradoxical line which was ‘This poem was sent from my iPhone’. This marks a very humorous end contradicting the message on the usage of mobile phones.

What did I  think of the whole collection?

The collection was very interesting to read and I believe those that appreciate experimental poetry will really enjoy this collection. It features poems with unique structures like heart-shaped poems, upside down poems (I do not know the technical word for this) and even poetry written as Venn diagrams, organisation chart and excel spreadsheets. If you are interested in exploring various forms and shapes of poetry, you may find this collection as an interesting point of reference.

Concluding thoughts

This collection receives a three star out of five due to the ease of reading and the delivery  of the content is simple to understand. However in some instances, I felt that the reader had to do the work and by that I mean some of the experimental poems requires deep thinking on how it should be read which creates an active and alert reader throughout the piece.