CHILE DEMANDS: 'Until dignity is customary'
[Carlos Figueroa/CC]
HENRY BELL is fascinated by the underlying curiosities and contradictions of one of the great poets of the Mediterranean
DAVID RENTON recommends a books that explores the ways in which disabled people are made to feel both of and not part of this world
JONATHAN TAYLOR is fascinated by the philosophical problems that permeate the art of life-writing
GORDON PARSONS steps warily in between the lines of Britain’s most famous diarist
SIMON DUFF recommends a recording of Arvo Part that takes the listener on a pilgrimage through seemingly distant times and events of the Bible
“IN THE dark times will there be singing?” Bertolt Brecht famously asked when he was in exile. His answer was that “there will be singing about the dark times.” Here are four strong new collections about the dark times in which we now find ourselves.
Mike Jenkins (ed) Gwrthryfel/Uprising (Culture Matters, £12) is a fantastic collection of radical poetry from contemporary Wales. There are almost 80 poems here, in English and Welsh, including some great poems by Sheenagh Pugh, Des Mannay, Alun Rees, Christopher Meredith, Tracey Rhys, Annest Gwilym (Wales for Sale) and Anne Phillips (We are a proud nation of call centres).
It is a collection of poems about violence – against the poor, against women, against language, against common decency, against Nature. In Gelliwastad Ablaze Dyfan Lewis watches the summer-dry gorse burn one night above Swansea:
ANDY CROFT welcomes the publication of an anthology of recent poems published by the Morning Star, and hopes it becomes an annual event
