Kitchen, 12.07 a.m., is the second
collection of poems by Julian Flanagan
(1962-2018). Many first appeared in magazines
such as The Spectator, Ambit, The Rialto, The Reader,
Envoi, Iota, and The Manchester Review. His poems were short-listed in the Teignmouth Festival and
Plough Poetry Prizes.

Mario Petrucci described Flanagan’s first collection as
“Flecked with arresting imagery, Cooking with Cancer
looks and looks again…it refuses to flinch.” (Although
Kitchen, 12.07 a.m., comes cancer-free, wrote Julian.)

His poems can be celebratory, elegiac, or pithy –

Apart

We tap text, puncture separation
with a line of drill heads: xxxxx

Preacher-haunted motorways lie beside sleeping
queen bees waiting to govern; a baby struggles through her first breaths; the
Tardis jumps a middle-aged man back to his Cheshire childhood; a
lawnmower cuts the air in a Jamaican stairwell; a boiler ticks reassuringly
through the small hours.

A freelance journalist, Flanagan wrote for The Times, Time Out, FT
Weekend, FT Magazine, The Daily Telegraph, The Independent on Sunday and economist.com. His articles
included interviews with Don McCullin, Ralph Steadman, Stella Rimington,
Jack Straw, Susan Hill, Billy Bragg and Howard Jacobson; and reportage on
the unsung heroes of London’s 7/7 bombings, a dawn run in Florence,
Dubai’s late night Ramadan cricket tournaments, beer and breakfast in
Smithfield, and Soweto’s first health spa.

After correcting the proofs of this book, Julian Flanagan died on 29 August 2018.