MICK MCSHANE is roused by a band whose socialism laces every line of every song with commitment and raw passion
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Birdy
CHRIS SEARLE takes wing with Leeds-born poet of mixed Sri Lankan and English heritage, Seni Seneviratne
White-cheeked Starlings perching on power cables
New releases from Mountain, Soul Asylum and Michael McDermott
ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
SUE TURNER welcomes a thoughtful, engaging book that lays bare the economic realities of global waste management
JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
THE GO-AWAY BIRD: Poems by Seni Seneviratne
Peepal Tree Press, £9.99
MANY poets — and revolutionaries too, from Shelley to Rosenberg to the Palestinian laureate, Mahmoud Darwish — have invoked images of birds as freedom flyers and refugees from the human world on the ground of injustice and stranglehold. But few, like John Clare with his feathery wordplay and simple brilliance, have used their empathy to become the very birds they describe.
The Leeds-born poet of mixed Sri Lankan and English heritage, Seni Seneviratne, does exactly this in her collection The Go-Away Bird.
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