“A Poke in the Third Eye” By Sam Marsh (Earth Island Books)

In A Poke in the Third Eye, Sam Marsh doesn’t just write poems, but throws them like well-aimed Molotov cocktails wrapped in velvet. What appears on the surface to be a collection of nearly 200 short, often irreverent observations quickly reveals itself as a profoundly thoughtful, darkly comic, and startlingly honest investigation of what it means to be human in the 21st century. This is poetry with barbed wire wrapped around its heart; it stings, tickles, and it makes you laugh, sometimes all at once. Marsh, a former frontman of the UK alt-rock band Jacob’s Mouse and a long-time mental health worker turned poet-Buddhist-punk, continues the voice he introduced in Wisdom of the Punk Buddha. But here, he pushes further, deeper, and stranger. Where that first book wandered gently through spiritual awakenings and daily struggles with a Buddhist’s humility, A Poke in the Third Eye storms in with its Doc Martens laced and its pen fully loaded. The poems in this collection, many of which are only a few lines long, do not waste a syllable. Marsh wields brevity like a blade, slicing into the absurdity, brutality, and beauty of contemporary life. In just the first few dozen pages, we’re led through the ruins of littered streets, the banality of YouTube unboxing videos, the devastation of domestic violence, and the ever-accelerating insanity of the digital attention economy.

Each poem is like a cracked mirror held up to our faces, but what Marsh does so brilliantly is ensure that we see not just the grotesque reflections of a decaying world, but the surreal comedy within it. In that sense, this collection reads like a punk rock stand-up routine performed in a zendo. You might find yourself chuckling one moment and slapped with a line of real emotional resonance the next. It’s that friction, the sacred and the profane, the ridiculous and the tragic, that gives the book its weight and charm. Stylistically, Marsh writes with the controlled chaos of someone who’s seen both sides of the abyss. His voice is raw but refined, you can feel the punk roots in every beat, but also the mindful calm of someone who has meditated through the madness. There is no pretension, only presence. Marsh doesn’t write like he’s trying to impress other poets, but writes like he’s trying to connect with whoever’s still listening, and that is precisely what makes this collection feel so critical and necessary. The unpredictability is one of the greatest qualities of this collection. You don’t know whether the next poem will be a scathing takedown of capitalism, a poignant observation about grief, or a laugh-out-loud riff on cats puking on the carpet. You’re not led by narrative arc, but by tone and tension. It’s a bit like channel surfing inside Marsh’s brain, only to realize you’re surfing your subconscious as well. Take, for instance, the way he treats technology: never overtly moralizing, but always skewering. Instead of railing against social media in tired generational clichés, Marsh zooms in on the lonely absurdity of it, our desperate hunger for likes, our devotion to screens, and our slow devolution into meme-communicating dopamine junkies. But again, he doesn’t wag a finger. He just paints the picture so well, you laugh before you realize you’re the punchline.

This ability to marry satire and sincerity is rare, and Marsh handles it with astonishing skill. When he touches on heavier subjects, addiction, spousal abuse, mental health, he does so not with grand declarations or moral outrage, but with the clear-eyed honesty of someone who’s sat with suffering and chosen not to look away. There’s tenderness in even the most cutting lines. And when he writes about love, he does so with the same irreverence, as if love itself is another absurd miracle that we’ve all somehow survived. The book’s title, A Poke in the Third Eye, couldn’t be more fitting. It suggests both spiritual awakening and cheeky irreverence, and that’s exactly the tone Marsh strikes. He isn’t claiming to be some enlightened guru, nor is he dismissing the value of deeper introspection. He walks the tightrope between the two with grace and wit, offering his readers a chance to laugh at the very ideas they once took too seriously, and perhaps still do. Readers looking for lyrical metaphors or academic virtuosity might be bewildered here. This is not poetry of the ivory tower, it’s poetry of the pub, the protest, the bus stop. It’s DIY and democratic, the kind of poetry that dares to speak in your voice, not above it. That makes Marsh a rare voice in a literary landscape often too preoccupied with polish. He isn’t here to dazzle you, he’s here to wake you up, make you laugh, make you feel something sharp, something true. There is also a strange comfort in knowing that Marsh, somewhere in Suffolk, sits surrounded by cats, quietude, and possibly chaos, channeling all this insight and energy into something so honest. He is, by his own admission, a poet who doesn’t fit into categories. A punk who meditates, a Buddhist who curses, a thinker who laughs, and A Poke in the Third Eye reflect that contradiction in full bloom.

This is not a book that tries to please. It tries to connect, asks the reader to engage, think, feel, and perhaps reconsider the familiar. For those willing to tune into its frequency, the reward is immense, a journey through the wreckage and wonder of modern existence, guided by one of the most refreshingly original voices to emerge in contemporary poetry. To call A Poke in the Third Eye a poetry collection would be too limiting. It’s a manifesto, a confession, a laugh in the face of despair. It’s the sound of a punk rocker turned monk whispering (and occasionally shouting) truths into the whirlwind of daily life. And like the best punk records, it agitates, inspires, and it stays with you. Head to Earth Island Books for more information about ordering.