WILL STONE fact-checks the colourful life of Ozzy Osbourne
21st Century Poetry with Andy Croft: February 21, 2022
While the enemy’s ideas of culture are disfigured by money, snobbery, ignorance and dullness, the left still has the poets with something to say
JAMES CROSSLEY applauds a lucid biography of the German radical preacher who reemerged as a hero in the GDR
Prizes all round: the Bard hands plaudits to the Miners Gala, OT&JC, Joe Solo, Black Sabbath’s frontman and the Lionesses
Star cartoonist JAMIE BRITTON is in awe of a graphic novel of epic proportions that explores class, religion and globalisation via the strange cultivation of Ginseng in the US Midwest
GUILLERMO THOMAS is intrigued by a history of the Middle East that demonstrates how promising post colonial beginnings were snuffed out by Western imperialist interests
MARIA DUARTE recommends the intricate study of a high-performance and highly dysfuntional German family
AT A time of deepening structural inequalities in British life, the world of contemporary poetry publishing is increasingly remote and inaccessible. It is hard to be heard. But while the enemy’s ideas of culture are disfigured by money, snobbery, ignorance and dullness, the left still has the poets with something to say.
Here are four strong new anthologies that try to bear witness to the dangerous and absurd world of the 21st century.
A Fish Rots from the Head: A Poetic and Political Wake (Culture Matters, FREE e-book) is a flash-anthology addressing the “lawless folly” of partygate. Edited by Rip Bulkeley, these poems were written as the Downing Street comic opera began to unfold.
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ANDY CROFT rallies poets to the impossible task of speaking truth to a tin-eared politician
New titles from Fran Lock, Richard Skinner, Tara Bergin and Mark A Murphy
New titles from Kurdish poet İlhan Sami Comak and Volker Braun, one of Germany’s most important writers
New collections from Neil Fulwood, Kevin Higgins, Clare Saponia, Nora Blascsok and Peter Godfrey
