’V’ by Tony Harrison

WARNING: Contains extensive use of profanity. ’V’ is a poem by Tony Harrison written during the 1984-1985 miners strike. The poem aroused much controversy when broadcast in a film version on Channel 4. It describes the author’s visit to his parents’ grave in a Leeds cemetery “now littered with beer cans and vandalised by obscene graffiti“. The cemetery in question is Holbeck cemetery in the Beeston area of Leeds which overlooks the Elland Road football ground, close to where Harrison grew up. The poem gives description of the graffiti on the grave, and pays particular notice to the use of the word united, exploring its ambiguous meaning, either as the name of a football club or a feeling of unity. Harrison was born in Leeds and educated at Leeds Grammar School and the University of Leeds, where he read Classics and took a diploma in Linguistics. The material of much of his poetry is provided by the memories of his working-class childhood, drawing extensively on his northern r