The poetry of Mikey Carroll

I hate when we're apart
I go to bed alone each night with a very heavy heart
I miss your arm around me, I miss our legs entwined
I wish that judge hadn't sent you down; I wish you'd just got fined.

From Careful What You Wish For

Edward Upward believed to become a good writer one must be a good Marxist or failing that be working class or if that not possible, then fully sympathise with the working class for only they can "tell the truth about reality"1. Mikey Carroll's poetry which features in his autobiography is writing that Upward would have admired as it lacks any stylistic pretension and any allegorical or metaphorical qualities, being ground in real life experience (the poem above refers to Carroll's wife who is in prison). It is a shame that Carroll is working class, as otherwise he would have been a good Marxist, but unfortunately as Upward showed you can't be both.


1. Sketch for a Marxist Interpretation of Literature (1937)