Rob Auton

Petrol Honey is a collection of poetry written by up and coming British comedian Rob Auton, whose material is a mix of comedy and spoken word. A friend and I went to his show at the Cheltenham Literary Festival last weekend and came out with mixed emotions. At times he was outright funny, at times he was full of childlike innocence and wonderment, at times he was a complete tortured soul, at times he was completely barmy.

This book (published a few years ago) is pretty much the same. It's show more probably the first poetry / prose book I've read in 30 years, and I was glad I'd seen the show first as I think I needed to imagine it performed in my head to completely get it. The majority of the work is quite mad, but I enjoyed it for that. Auton has a knack of stopping and appreciating the world in a way most of us have forgotten how to by the time we reach adulthood.

This was one of my favourites (I thought it sad yet quite lovely):

Thumbs
My thumbs are wet and its not working.
Well what are you trying to work?
I don't know, just life I guess.
Well why don't you dry your thumbs and see if your life gets any better?
I can't find anything to dry them on.
Here look you can use my T-shirt if you like?
Are you sure?
Yes.
You won't mind having a little bit of wet on your T-shirt?
Not if it makes your life better.
Why are you so nice to me?
I want you to have dry thumbs and to be there when they get wet and nothing works.

3.5 stars - it's hard for me to rate this as I don't tend to read poetry, but some of it really spoke to me, and I think I'll dip into it again in the future. show less