Poetry & Pints: The Broken Spine Live Lands at The Grasshopper, Southport

Alan Parry is a Merseyside-based writer, editor, critic, and community organiser whose work moves with political intent. His debut novella Peeling Apples (2025) is a lean, emotionally charged portrait of grief, masculinity, and fractured family ties, written with the kind of restraint that hits harder than flourish ever could. His poetry: Neon Ghosts (2020), Belisama (2021), Echoes (2022), and Twenty Seven (2023) - draws from a different palette: rhythmic, haunted, and musically alive. Influenced by Latin jazz, girl group heartbreak, and northern soul, his poems hum with emotional complexity and working-class lyricism. This is where the softness sits, alongside the bite. Parry is political. Always has been. His writing doesn’t seek approval, it seeks truth. As founder of #PromoteIndieLit, he built a free-access platform where indie writers and presses can get their work seen and reviewed without begging permission. He also curates and hosts events, both live and digital, that prioritise community over clout, conversation over performance. As a critic and commentator, Parry’s voice is direct, unvarnished, and deeply rooted in lived experience. Whether reviewing poetry or interrogating pop culture, he calls it as he sees it, with clarity, care, and no interest in playing nice with systems that exclude. Parry doesn’t write to charm. He writes to challenge, connect, and keep the margins visible. If you’re looking for polish, look elsewhere. If you’re looking for honesty, you’ve found it.