In Retail by Jeremy Dixon

In Retail by Jeremy Dixon

While working in a well-known pharmacy chain, Jeremy Dixon found surprising inspiration. His poems were written on the ends of till rolls and smuggled out in his socks. Anyone who has ever worked in retail will recognise the characters and situations, and the magnificent management absurdities; but Jeremy also bring his perspective as a gay man to bear with witty and wicked results.

The situations are recognisable, written without judgemental comment and the poems report the shortcomings of petty bureaucracy without ranting or taking sidesIn Retail offers insights and knows how to end a story precisely on the punchline. Each page has the title In Retail in grey reversed print at the top. Each even page has the message ‘Thank you for your custom’ in grey reversed print. Each odd page has a different message, e.g. ‘All made in China’, ‘Obey the till’, ‘Hurry they won’t last long’ in grey reversed print. This layout suggests a receipt roll and the poems appear to be printed on the back, a subversively humorous reflection of how they were composed.

* London Grip *

an incredibly observant collection

Consumer culture is embedded into the very form of the writing itself.

That line in the final stanza is incredible. ‘Mother says contactless is Satan’s kiss’. Payment is a glide of the hand, quick, dismissive, a kiss that never touches the glass. Thoughtlessness cushions temptation.

-- Lydia Hounat * LitBitch *

Jeremy Dixon was born in Essex and now lives in rural South Wales making Artist’s Books that combine poetry and photography. His poems have appeared both online and in print in Roundyhouse Magazine, Riptide Journal, Lighthouse Journal, Durable Goods, and Really System, among others. Cherry Potts is the Director of Arachne Press, for whom she is editor of almost all our anthologies and runs the Annual Solstice Shorts Festival. Cherry is the author of an epic fantasy novel, two collections of short stories, a photographic diary of a community opera, and has had many stories in anthologies, magazines and online. Her novel of sibling hatred in the 1920s, The Bog Mermaid, won the Quill LGBTQ+ Prose prize 2022.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781909208728
ISBN 10	1909208728
Title	In Retail
Author	Jeremy Dixon
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Arachne Press
Year published	2019-02-07
Number of pages	40
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.