The poems in Very Friendly Weapon run the course of an impossible year, the accumulation of several years' explorations and discoveries: poet James M'Kay travels as far as Turkey and Tennessee while still struggling to leave Tyneside, developing interests in death, flying, and regular metre.Looking forward into the Great Uncertainty, and back through childhood and history into myth, they were written in between summer seasons working as a tour guide across Europe. All have been performed in spoken word venues across the UK as the scene rapidly expanded between 2011 and 2017. Some were featured in the 2015 Edinburgh Fringe Show The Boy with the Moomin Tattoo (for PBH Free Fringe).