Books for Adult Readers
Voices In My Head & Corona Diary
Nick Toczek, has been a full time professional writer and performer for half a century. Since 1972 he’d published more than fifty books - mostly of poetry.
Starting with small press publishers, he’s gone on to have books published by Macmillan, Routledge, Hodder, LDA, Caboodle and more.
Despite the pandemic, 2020 has been a particularly productive year for him.
In January, Caboodle Books published his poetry collection for adults and secondary pupils, Voices In My Head. That same month, Mutiny 2000 Records released Shooting The Messenger, a 17-track CD of him performing his poems set to music by the band Signia Alpha.
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In mid-March, days before Britain entered lockdown, Nick began writing daily pandemic-related poems. Every day he’d post one of these on two Facebook pages (his own and Janine Booth’s Corona Verses). They proved highly popular.
In late August, the first 108 of these were published by Mutiny 2000 Publications as Corona Diary.
The Meat Boutique
This collection of lyrics and performance-poetry was published in 1991 by PB Books, the imprint run by Paul Beasley who, with his wife, Ruth Harrison, had spent several years running the seminal London performance-poetry organisation, Apples and Snakes for whom Nick had been a regular performer. As well as writing the book, Nick designed and hand-wrote every page.
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The book takes its name from a butcher's shop that traded in Bradford during the 1980s!
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If you follow this link you can see Nick performing Noo Yawk Chant / Sheer Funk the text of which appears in this book.
In November, a 12-track, mostly remixed version of Shooting The Messenger will be released as a vinyl album (with lyric inner sleeve) by Mutiny 2000 Records.
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Also in November, a second volume of 123 Corona Diary poems will be published by Mutiny 2000 Publications under the title The Year The World Stood Still.
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In January 2021, Death & Other Destinations, another album of Nick performing his poems set to music is to be released on vinyl (again with a lyric inner sleeve). This one will feature music by Bavarian multi-instrumentalist Thies Marsen. It’ll be their second collaboration, their first having been the 2019 CD, The Bavariations Album, both released via the label Not-A-Rioty.
