Jon Stone

Biography
Jon Stone was born in 1983 in Derby and currently lives in Whitechapel. He was highly commended in the 2009 National Poetry Competition.

SCARECROWS (Happenstance, 2010)

 * Sphinx -- Stone is well-read, keen of ear and a very, very fine technician, but what wins me over is his divine crankiness. He has a flair for tall tales of criminals, charlatans and monsters, told from the skewed perspective of the people who admire them.
 * The Courier -- Even in Stone's weaker, most vaudevillian moments, the reader is more likely to miss the allusive basis of his writing, rather than encounter a comprehension gap.
 * Sabotage -- There’s plenty to choose from with the chewingly shamanic ‘Jake Root’ and the cringingly amusing ‘Bullshit-Related Injuries in the A & E’. My favourite, however, is ‘Bedhair’, Stone’s reworking of Yosano Akiko’s tankas. They’re raw like a fresh graze, sexy, and smell strongly of booze.
 * The Bow-Wow Shop -- The poems are somewhat psycho-geographical, with witchcraft and superstition the most regularly occurring theme.

COIN OPERA (Sidekick Books, 2010) (Editor/contributor)

 * Hand+Star -- This pocket size collection is a poetic Game Boy.
 * Sabotage -- The reliance on computer games for content is perhaps the greatest weakness Coin Opera suffers. Some of the poems require more than a passing knowledge of gaming to be really grasped.