Fresh Failure: New Poems

The eagerly anticipated new volume of poetry by acclaimed author and artist John Tottenham.

Tottenham's previous collections—The Hate Poems; Antiepithalamia & Other Poems of Regret and Resentment; The Inertia Variations (a multi-media interpretation of which was released by Matt Johnson, otherwise known as The The, in 2017)—established him as this day’s leading contemporary poet maudit.

Fresh Failure features a deepening and broadening of Tottenham’s trademark Magical Cynicism and Magnanimous Misanthropy. With hilariously ruthless ruminations on the artistic ego and the romantic id, Tottenham gives voice to the kind of thoughts most people prefer not to express but will automatically relate to and be entertained by.  It's the kind of poetry that is accessible to people who don't read poetry (i.e., everybody). Fresh Failure is ultimately a Triumph of Failure, and proves, as Jean-Luc Godard said, that poetry really is “a game of loser take all.”