Reviews of Habibi Funk 031, Kayatibu, and The Good Ones
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Words of resistance to the sinister, the ridiculous and the downright revolting
Michael Rosen celebrates with 1,438 children after breaking the record for the largest reading lesson in the world at Charter Hall in Colchester, Essex in 2014
SIMON DUFF relishes the cross contamination of Damien Hirst’s greatest hits by street artists from France and the US
In view of the grooming gangs inquiry, SIMON PARSONS feels the relevance of this powerful examination of trauma suffered at Medomsley Youth Detention Centre
JOHN GREEN doubts the motivations of a US war photographer who never questions why, or for whom, she is producing images of imperialist conflict
MARIA DUARTE reviews Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, Hedda, The Mastermind, and Regretting You
TONY CONWAY welcomes a thrilling and concise history of Hope not Hate, that is also a manual full of tactical advice
PAUL DONOVAN welcomes an inspiring account of living with deafness that has important lessons for the treatment of deaf people in today’s UK
“Poetry can stick up for the weak,” says Michael Rosen, or it can “mock the mighty. It can “glorify our rulers or it can dissect them. You choose.”
In Listening to a Pogrom on the Radio (Smokestack Books, £8.95), his new collection for grown-ups, Rosen makes his own choices clear. It’s a book about anti-semitism, racism, Trump, Le Pen and the Tory assaults on the NHS and education — the stupid and the sinister, the ridiculous and the revolting:
“I was listening to a pogrom on the radio today / coming from a party conference where they had a lot to say / about people who move, people who move here / and I got it from the pogrom this is something to fear / I should worry about the people next door / I should worry about the woman cleaning the floor...”
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ANDY CROFT rallies poets to the impossible task of speaking truth to a tin-eared politician
PATRICK JONES recommends a vital anthology from Afghan and Iranian poets where the political and personal fuse into witness-bearing and manifesto-making
ANDY HEDGECOCK welcomes an explanation of genocide by the persecuted author that is both uplifting and important
A remarkable posthumous collection of poetry and other writings is a tragic document of genocide, and a beacon of hope for a Palestinian future, says HENRY BELL