Imagine a town full of poets, where readings replace council meetings, where the Town Hall becomes a place to hang out, where bicycles are everywhere and hang-gliding is the only way to travel in the slow, leisurely, rush hour.
Imagine a place where love, light and happiness are as much a part of the weather as sunshine, breezes, and heat. Imagine schools run out in the open in hedgerows and meadows, hospitals where the holiness of the heart’s affections lead to medical breakthroughs, and universities where goodness, beauty and truth build by degrees to poetry, the whole the cycle looping back on itself.
This is where The Beach Generation live, in a town the poets have taken over.
Brighton isn’t just a place: it’s a state of mind. Say hello to the beachniks.
'John O’Donoghue trusts the mystery of language and the music of words. He captures the essence of people, knowing when to be concise, when to be expansive in these splendid tributes to the individuals who are important to him, both personally and aesthetically.
The Beach Generation achieves that toughest of balancing acts; it manages to be specific and universal at the same time.’
Nessa O’Mahony, Reviews Editor, Orbis
John O’Donoghue’s journalism, poetry and fiction has appeared in The Observer, The TES, The London Magazine, PN Review, Ambit, Acumen, Orbis, Aesthetica and Poetry Express.
‘Letter To Lord Rochester’ was published by Waterloo Press in 2004.
His memoir, Sectioned, was recently acquired by John Murray, and will be published in February 2009.
