Never one to be troubled by the chronology of cultural fads, poet Dennis Beerpint is trying to reinvent himself as a beatnik. He has been seen about town sporting a goatee beard and a jet black polo neck sweater. A concerned Beerpint-watcher suspects a copy of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl may have fallen into his hands.

“Knowing Dennis Beerpint,” writes my correspondent, “His version of Howl will probably be called Bleat or Oooh, Missus!”

This seems a bit harsh to me. Though Beerpint can be incorrigibly twee, and often fatuous, at its best his work has reduced me to a sincerely sobbing heap of woebane. I am thinking of such pieces as Lines Upon The Collision Of A Little Peewit With A Hot Air Balloon, a poem I consider to be the finest peewit-related poem of the last millennium. It will be interesting to see where he goes in his new beatnik persona, daddy-o. Well, perhaps not interesting, but at the very least mildly diverting in a Beerpinty way for those of us who follow his doings.