Who’s who
Paul Birtill

Father Michael was explaining
to me how we won't have our bodies
in heaven, just our souls and I said
how will we recognize everyone – know
who we're talking to – Jesus Christ or
Bernard Manning, St Peter or Walt Disney,
John the Baptist or John Wayne, Francis
of Assisi or Enoch Powell, Mahatma Gandhi
or Fred Astaire, Mother Teresa or Lucille Ball?
Stop it! Stop it! You'll know he said, you'll
just know.

Paul Birtill was born in Walton, Liverpool in 1960. He moved to London in his early twenties when he began writing, and apart from a brief period in Glasgow, has lived there ever since. His poems appear regularly in national newspapers, magazines and literary journals and he has read them on national radio and at poetry venues nationwide. He has published a number of collections on the Hearing Eye imprint including the best-selling Terrifying Ordeal and Collected Poems 1987-2010.