To rescue Kahlo from the clutches of the corporate art market, we need to acknowledge the overt and covert political dimensions of the work, demands GAVIN O’TOOLE
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All manner of things red, yellow and falling in this autumn of poetry
If you can see past the relentless commodification you will be rewarded by enormously powerful work, suggests JENNY MITCHELL
CHRIS SEARLE revels in the one-off collaboration between an American polymath and a British Muslim, and detects the presence of their revolutionary forebear
GORDON PARSONS revels in an ebullient production of Shakespeare’s magical comedy
BRENT CUTLER welcomes a thoughtful analysis of the Erdogan regime, viewed through the evolving history of a neighbourhood in Istanbul
GORDON PARSONS regrets the price, but is dazzled by an outstandingly ambitious study of the way art restoration in particular, and culture in general was weaponised by the Nazis
SEPTEMBER saw Linton Kwesi Johnson at the British Library discussing the work of poet Michael Smith, a writer seeped in the common voice of Jamaica who was popular and influential in Britain.
Both he and LKJ gave a lift to us here writing and gigging in our own accents and vernacular. The working class has a myriad of tongues, they all get the same look of reproach. Linton shed some light onto the life, and murder, of Smith and read some of his poetry.
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Two inspring books — that’s your New Year’s musing from me on January 2 2026
ANDY CROFT welcomes the publication of an anthology of recent poems published by the Morning Star, and hopes it becomes an annual event
RUTH AYLETT reviews two collections of outright political poetry
ANDY CROFT rallies poets to the impossible task of speaking truth to a tin-eared politician