PRUNING THE FLOWERMEN

Recently at NME I received a batch of unsolicited 'poetic portraits' from a young, Londoner named Stephen Andrews. They were six: 'Punk,' 'Skinhead,' 'Hippie,' 'Trendy,' 'Rockstar' and 'Rasta.' Part of Andrews's 'Portrait...Punk' ('I'm the quiet type, I'm shy/Although I like blokes/One in particular/By name of Gary Stokes/Punk is just another/Phase I'm passing through/Kids always rebel awhile...Didn't you?/NME says Punk has lost/The power to outrage/And anyway I've got to consider/My age/What I really want to do is start/A family/And settle down into a life/Of calm conformity').