John Rety - writer, editor and publisher, chess player, anarchist and pacifist - was best known in the literary world for his contributions to he established the long-running and much loved Torriano Meeting House poetry readings and Hearing Eye press. Less well known is John's own poetry. Notebook in Hand is a selection from his five collections as well as unpublished and new poems - he was still writing up until his untimely death in February 2010. His poetry is both simple and complex - tender, funny, poignant, and companionable, it is also edgy, acerbic, troubled and disappointed. As well as his better-known comic poetry, Notebook in Hand presents tender lyrics and trenchant political meditations, some of which may surprise, but will certainly delight, his readers.