Feed a Cold,
Starve a Fever
Sixties Press, 2004
ISBN 1-902-731-04-2
Out of print
'…an astonishing sequence in fourteen composite parts, takes on the put-down phrase “confessional poetry” up front, by subtitling the poem ‘Confessions of an Absentee’. What follows in this densely packed but clear and cogent poetry, is a first person outpouring of someone suffering from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder in which the medium is also the message. Morrison may be subject to OCD himself but the poetry…is not at all an uncontrolled splurge, and the considerable skills required to construct, pace and sequence a sixty eight page poem are everywhere in evidence. …the assurance and energy of thought and the variety of imagery commands one’s interest throughout' Graham High, Poetry Express
'Vivid in the immediacy of its description and very moving'
John Welch, The Many Press
'By turns, sensitive, amusing, witty and touching'
John Ballam, New Hope International
'Alan Morrison is a new but electric voice on the British poetry scene. Opening Feed A Cold, Starve A Fever is like stepping into a strange eerie world where internal and external reality converge, are juxtaposed, separate and then re-fuse. Seeing the ‘specialness’ inherent in ordinary phenomena is the essence of the poet’s art and the unfolding of his personal ‘take’ is the principal delight of reading good work. Morrison’s work is an interesting mixture of innocence and experience. Morrison has a ‘voice’ (“All that poets can have”, as Auden said). The ‘force of obsession tugs me’ Morrison writes, and the same force tugs the reader along compulsively through this saga of self-exploration. Morrison does not flinch about ‘coming out’ as a sufferer from obsessive compulsive disorder: for this too he deserves the high praise his poetry demands' Barry Tebb