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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21st-century poetry
Collections from Neil Fulwood, Carolyn Forche, Isabella Morra, Caroline Maldonado and John Gohorry
Translating the untranslatable: David Shankbone
[David Shankbone]
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
THERE’S a great poem in Neil Fulwood’s new collection which addresses the difficulty of saying what sometimes needs to be said in poetry:
“I give you a poem about the state of things/You say it’s cynical and pessimistic/You ask for something positive/You ask for a nice poem/I show you a newspaper headline/You say you don’t follow current affairs/You say politics is boring/You ask for a nostalgic poem.”
Can’t Take Me Anywhere (Shoestring Press, £10) is a wonderfully gruff collection of minimalist urban landscapes — witty and scathing about work, politics, traffic, weather and the inanities of contemporary life. It’s a book of strong individual poems too, notably All Day Long, Peril, 20 Zone, Lizard and the splendidly bleak England:
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