Reviews of Habibi Funk 031, Kayatibu, and The Good Ones
Latest editorial
Class War as Culture War
ALISTAIR FINDLAY welcomes a collection of essays from one of the cultural left’s most respected speakers and activists
IMPROVE THE BLANK PAGE: Installation by Nicanor Parra at the Centro Cultural Palacio La Moneda, Santiago, in 2007: "In case of resurrection do turn anticlockwise, this coffin is automatic."
[Carlos Varela/flickr/CC]
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
The Privatisation of Poetry,
Andy Croft, Broken Sleep Books, £13.99
IN this book Andy Croft brings together 21 essays and reviews first published in the Morning Star and a wide range of literary and online magazines between 1994-2024, including the New Statesman, London Magazine, PN Review, Scratch and Thumbscrew — several at the heart of the “art” poetry establishment he criticises.
Collectively these pieces underscore the theme articulated by his friend and collaborator, the legendary popular performance poet Adrian Mitchell: “Most people ignore poetry because most poetry ignores most people.”
With Croft, Mitchell co-edited the ground-breaking left movement anthology Red Sky At Night, 2003, which reached back to Blake and the Chartists and forward to the contemporary, and which included Poet Laureates and Scottish Makars writing art poetry, certainly, but from the left.
Similar stories
Peter Mitchell's photography reveals a poetic relationship with Leeds
This is poetry in paint, spectacular but never spectacle for its own sake, writes JAN WOOLF
RON JACOBS welcomes the long overdue translation of an epic work that chronicles resistance to fascism during WWII
ANDY HEDGECOCK relishes two exhibitions that blur the boundaries between art and community engagement