Context - Ode on a Grayson Perry Urn

• The poem 'Ode on a Grayson Perry Urn' was written by Tim Turnbull
• Tim Turnbull is a contemporary British writer, performer, and visual artist. Born in the north of England, Turnbull moved to Scotland as a young man and has since become a popular public figure, leading community poetry readings and workshops
• Tim Turnbull published 'Ode on a Grayson Perry Urn' in his 2009 collection 'Caligula on Ice and Other Poems'
• 'Ode on a Grayson Perry Urn' is rooted in a very specific time and place - The fashions ("Burberry" & "corn-rows") and music ("garage" & "house") the speaker mentions ground the poem in Britain during the first decades of the 2000s
• The early 2000s saw a global recession; for a lot of people, work was hard to find, and money was tight - The devil-may-care kids this poem's speaker describes respond to poverty with defiance and glee
• This was the era of the ASBO (or Anti-Social Behaviour Order), a kind of warning against common public misbehaviours like drunkenness and peeing in places one shouldn't
• Introduced by Prime Minister Tony Blair's government in 1998, ASBOs were often directed at juvenile delinquents and became a symbol of a culture in which the older generations just didn't know what to do with the young
• Until they were abolished in 2014, ASBOs became almost a badge of pride for the rebellious kids who earned them