As posed in the foreword, Wilcock’s first poetry pamphlet Once Upon a Time in Glasgow, published by Speculative Books, meanders through the gloam and glory of Glasgow’s cityscape, and the mindscape of his own consciousness. The pamphlet opens with ‘You’, an invitation for the reader to revel in their own beauty. Rapidly, the tone oscillates from earnest hope to deep despair as Wilcock discusses, with raw sincerity, his navigation of the city, love, queerness, and a tumultuous relationship with self-acceptance. The pamphlet is full of brave, heartfelt poems like ‘Hospital Room’, where Wilcock uses a plethora of visceral imagery to convey his journey with disability, from being unable to ‘rid / of the sight of his crunching bones as they / hammer home the truth of societal disability’ to the ghosts that ‘taunt him no more.’
Once Upon a Time in Glasgow is out now, available to purchase at speculativebooks.net
