Edwin Fairbrother
Edwin Fairbrother
Edwin Fairbrother is a writer and poet born and currently based in London, UK. He has a bachelor's degree in media studies and a master's in music business. He loves listening to and writing about music in his spare time, with articles being published in Alternative Press, Rave Report, and Pipeline Artists after finishing his master's degree in 2021. Edwin then started exploring creative writing, turning to poetry initially to express his frustration with a disastrous geopolitical landscape, certain aspects of our increasingly digitised and divided societies, as well as occasionally the sparks that give our world its magic. Poets whose work he enjoys and is most influenced by are Brian Bilston, Aja Monet and Hussain Manawer, as well as wider literary and creative influences such as George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, and Charlie Brooker (the writer behind Black Mirror). Since 2025 Edwin's poetry (including some from this collection) has been published in WayWords Literary Journal, The Page Gallery Journal, The Quasar Review, Scribbled, The Raven Review, The Poetry Lighthouse, Masticadores Canada, and in Enfield Poets Second Anthology. Warheads is his debut collection, with more collections and fiction books in the pipeline. You can follow him on Instagram @edwinfairbredda_writes to read his newest works and keep up to date with future publications.
Edwin Fairbrother's debut collection, Warheads: Poems About War, Peace & Politics, aims to bridge societal divides and oppose war at a moment when the world may need that most. This conceptual collection lays bare the paradoxical, foolish, and ultimately futile nature of warfare and political conflict, exploring its causes and consequences as they relate to human nature, partisan politics, and the environment, through a lens that is by turns critical and philosophical. Many of the poems return to a single conviction: that recognizing our shared humanity matters more than the false promise of conflict as a solution to political, cultural, and societal problems. The collection speaks to many kinds of conflict, from the left-right culture war to the plight of refugees and the infantry soldiers so often failed by the politics that send them to fight. Taking aim at everything from the military-industrial complex to partisan politics and human nature itself, these poems offer a stark, reflective look at a world defined by hostility and instability, while still finding room, at times, for a utopian vision of a world with less death and destruction.
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The collection ranges widely in form and style, from simple couplets and haiku to limericks, free verse, and narrative poems. It includes some of the author's earliest rhyming couplet poems alongside more accomplished work written roughly two years into his development as a poet. Poems from this collection have previously appeared in literary magazines, journals, and anthologies, including WayWords Literary Journal, The Page Gallery Journal, Scribbled, The Quasar Review, The Raven Review, and Enfield Poets Second Anthology.
Warheads is likely to resonate with centrist readers interested in politics, humanitarianism, and anti-war activism, as well as anyone frustrated by today's geopolitical climate.
Can we really afford not to engage with, and promote, these ideas in such a war-torn age?