From the Garden of Eden to the pavement of romance, outer space to bubble wrap, endangered species to climate change, Pete Mullineaux’s vivid and wide-ranging fourth collection explores personal-societal themes of loneliness, isolation, connection and dislocation; our ambivalent relationship with the natural world; ecological and environmental concerns; our confusions regarding science and religion; the elusive element of time. Philosophical, inventive, playful and fanciful at times, but always accessible and earthed by reality.
‘Mullineaux “bends an ear towards the earth” and creates a beautiful and whimsical music that tracks the connections and disconnects in our relationships with each other and with our planet. A wandering minstrel who captures the atmosphere of bus rides, cafés, city streets and scrapyards in tones that recall the poems of Roger McGough or the songs of Pete Seeger. He takes us into art galleries and walks us around music festivals, responding to all he sees and hears with imagination and kindness.’
Catherine Ann Cullen
‘Poignant love poems and family poems, poems inspired by art, music & the business of living and, perhaps most significant of all, poems arising out of compassion for those who “wear the uniform of poverty” or cannot speak for themselves – these are the ingredients of Pete Mullineaux’s intriguingly titled How to Bake a Planet, a book that voices many of the anxieties of contemporary life and, in the venerable tradition of the protest song, to considerable effect wears its political heart on its sleeve.’
Pat Boran
‘One of the warmest poets rocking around this little island of ours.’
Alvy Carragher, Headstuff.org