Skip to main content
Poetry
you must live
Book Review / 19 June 2026
19 June 2026

JAMIE BRITTON recommends that we all buy at least two copies of a remarkable book of poems

21st Century Poetry / 19 June 2026
19 June 2026

by Rachel Davies

21st Century Poetry / 3 June 2026
3 June 2026

by John Chinaka Onyech

21st Century Poetry / 13 May 2026
13 May 2026

by Harry Gallagher

shoulder
Poetry Review / 1 May 2026
1 May 2026

Read this book and be aware that this is our history, says RUTH AYLETT

21st Century Poetry / 29 April 2026
29 April 2026

by Omar Sabbagh

21st Century Poetry / 29 April 2026
29 April 2026

by Omar Sabbagh

The Laozi (Lao Tzu) sculpture in Quanzhou is over 780 years old and was carved from a single rock during the Song Dynasty (960–1279 CE) / Pic: N509FZ/CC
Poetry / 15 April 2026
15 April 2026

FINOLA SCOTT relishes a collection of verse in Scots that, among other things, meditates on the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu

21st Century Poetry / 1 April 2026
1 April 2026

by Kevin Scheepers

21st Century Poetry / 25 March 2026
25 March 2026

by Olaore Durodola-Oloto

21st Century Poetry / 18 March 2026
18 March 2026

by Khayelihle Benghu

bounds
Poetry review / 18 March 2026
18 March 2026

ALAN MORRISON recommends a consummate, heart-warming collection about a working-class upbringing in the industrial north-east

attila
Attila the Stockbroker Diary / 14 March 2026
14 March 2026

The Bard finds Bard Company, and rallies us all to the anti-fascist cause

21st Century Poetry / 11 March 2026
11 March 2026

by Patrick Cotter

21st Century Poetry / 4 March 2026
4 March 2026

by Gabriel Gbadamosi

21st Century Poetry / 25 February 2026
25 February 2026

by Nuala Watt

love
Poetry Review / 11 February 2026
11 February 2026

ALISTAIR FINDLAY recommends the simple cadence, common prose, free verse, and descriptive power of a new collection by Julie McNeill

21st century poetry / 11 February 2026
11 February 2026

by Julie McNeill

21st Century Poetry / 28 January 2026
28 January 2026

by Victor Osemeka

who we are launch
Your Paper / 22 January 2026
22 January 2026
21st Century Poetry / 21 January 2026
21 January 2026

by Jamie Lynch

21st Century Poetry / 5 January 2026
5 January 2026
21st Century Poetry / 31 December 2025
31 December 2025

By Rebecca Lowe

21st Century Poetry / 17 December 2025
17 December 2025

by Miriam Spillane

cavafy
Book Review / 11 December 2025
11 December 2025

HENRY BELL is fascinated by the underlying curiosities and contradictions of one of the great poets of the Mediterranean

21st Century Poetry / 10 December 2025
10 December 2025

by Curtis Brown

who we are
Poetry Review / 5 December 2025
5 December 2025

ANDY CROFT welcomes the publication of an anthology of recent poems published by the Morning Star, and hopes it becomes an annual event

mitchell
21st Century Poetry / 3 December 2025
3 December 2025

JENNY MITCHELL, poetry co-editor for the Morning Star, introduces her priorities, and her first selection

21st Century Poetry / 3 December 2025
3 December 2025

by Imasha Costa

cover
Poetry / 26 November 2025
26 November 2025

RUTH AYLETT reviews two collections of outright political poetry

21st Century Poetry / 26 November 2025
26 November 2025

by Christopher Norris

21st Century Poetry / 19 November 2025
19 November 2025

by Donna Irving

21st Century Poetry / 12 November 2025
12 November 2025

by  Martin Hayes

21st Century Poetry / 29 October 2025
29 October 2025

by Fiko D

21st Century Poetry / 15 October 2025
15 October 2025

by Omar Sabbagh

21st Century Poetry / 15 October 2025
15 October 2025

by Omar Sabbagh

harrison
Appreciation / 8 October 2025
8 October 2025

JOHN NEWSHAM recommends rereading Tony Harrison’s poem V for its relevance to 2025

21st Century Poetry / 8 October 2025
8 October 2025

by Alan Price

3/10
Attila the Stockbroker Diary / 3 October 2025
3 October 2025

The Bard reflects on sharing a bed, and why he wont go to Chelsea

21st Century Poetry / 1 October 2025
1 October 2025

by Vince Mills

21st Century Poetry / 1 October 2025
1 October 2025

by Merryn Williams

21st Century Poetry / 9 September 2025
9 September 2025

by Rose Lennard

21st Century Poetry / 27 August 2025
27 August 2025

By Nigel Davison

attila
Attila the Stockbroker Diary / 22 August 2025
22 August 2025

The Bard commutes to work for the first time in 45 years

21st Century Poetry / 30 July 2025
30 July 2025

by Yvonne Reddick

21st Century Poetry / 23 July 2025
23 July 2025

by Matt Duggan

merry hell
Attila the Stockbroker Diary / 29 May 2025
29 May 2025

The bard heralds the festive summer 

Socialist musicians / Pic: Author supplied
Poetry / 29 May 2025
29 May 2025

Human rights activist PETE STEVENSON, aka Pete the Poet, considers alternative ways of holding a meeting

21st Century Poetry / 14 May 2025
14 May 2025

Poems by Mohammed Moussa, Mark Kirkbride, Omar Sabbagh, Ruth Aylett, Mark Paffard and Patrick Jones

21st Century Poetry / 30 April 2025
30 April 2025

by Abeer Ameer

21st Century Poetry / 8 April 2025
8 April 2025
by Adaora Raji
Poetry review / 2 April 2025
2 April 2025
RUTH AYLETT admires the blunt honesty with which a woman’s experience is recorded, but detects the unexamined privilege that underlies it
21st Century Poetry / 2 April 2025
2 April 2025
by Maria Ferguson
21st Century Poetry / 26 March 2025
26 March 2025
by Lorraine Voss
Attila the Stockbroker Diary / 21 March 2025
21 March 2025
Given the global plague of Agent Orange, the bard channels his energy into community self-help
21st Century Poetry / 19 March 2025
19 March 2025
by Steven Taylor
21st Century Poetry / 12 March 2025
12 March 2025
by Tracey Rhys
21st Century Poetry / 5 March 2025
5 March 2025
by Gordon Scapens
Rene Magritte, Les Graces Naturelles (The Natural Graces)
Poetry review / 5 March 2025
5 March 2025
ALAN MORRISON hears the tradition of English Modernism in an unusually accomplished debut volume of poetry
21st Century Poetry / 26 February 2025
26 February 2025
by Ross Wilson
Attila the Stockbroker Diary / 21 February 2025
21 February 2025
In which we accompany the Bard into Cymru to meet his musical accomplices, young and old
21st Century Poetry / 19 February 2025
19 February 2025
by Jude Price
BURGEONING LEFT: Attila and Richard Burgon MP at Boom DIY Co
Attila the Stockbroker Diary / 7 February 2025
7 February 2025
The bard ditches an unspecial relationship, encounters a new subdivision of metal, and discovers the cure for a stiff neck
21st Century Poetry: / 5 February 2025
5 February 2025
by Mike Jenkins
Displaced Palestinians return to their homes in the northern
21st Century Poetry / 29 January 2025
29 January 2025
By Michael Rosen
Holocaust Memorial Day / 27 January 2025
27 January 2025
JEAN BOASE-BEIER introduces some of the poetry that help us to understand genocides past and present
Bob Grover
Attila the Stockbroker Diary / 24 January 2025
24 January 2025
The bard tunes into the message crooned by the newly self-appointed masters of the universe
21st Century Poetry / 22 January 2025
22 January 2025
by Nasrin Parvaz
21st Century poetry / 15 January 2025
15 January 2025
by Alistair Findlay
ALL ABOARD! Attila the stockbroker gears up for his January
Attila the Stockbroker Diary / 10 January 2025
10 January 2025
The bard’s indefatigable knack for rhythm and rhyme tunes into the gloomy zeitgeist and comes out cheerful
21st Century Poetry / 8 January 2025
8 January 2025
by Andy Jackson
REMEMBER THIS: Hind Rajab, a five-year-old Palestinian girl
Album review / 6 January 2025
6 January 2025
DAVID NICHOLSON draws attention to an album of music and poetry that channels a first-hand experience of Gaza
Season's Greetings, a mural by graffiti artist Banksy, stenc
21st Century Poetry: / 3 December 2024
3 December 2024
by Charlie Grace
FACT: Relative mourns over the body of a child, one of three
Book Review / 3 December 2024
3 December 2024
MEIC BIRTWHISTLE speaks to David Constantine about the fascination he shares with Brecht for the material exactness of Greek poetry
NEST FOR SEAGULLS: Falmer Stadium, currently known as the Am
Attila the Stockbroker Diary / 29 November 2024
29 November 2024
The Bard has his football/gigging fixtures blown apart by Bert, encounters a double headed flounder, and channels his inner Anglican to hymn the praises of the RNLI
Rosa Luxemburg memorial at the site where her corpse was thr
21st Century Poetry / 27 November 2024
27 November 2024
by Neil Young
(L) Scottish Socialist and Soviet Consul John Maclean in Dec
21st Century Poetry / 20 November 2024
20 November 2024
by Martin Goldie
Poetry review / 19 November 2024
19 November 2024
JAN WOOLF relishes a book of poetry that deploys the energy of political struggle, rooted in post-war working class history and culture
21st Century Poetry / 6 November 2024
6 November 2024
by Frankie Quinn
Andy Croft and some of the collections
Culture / 28 October 2024
28 October 2024
Legendary poetry publisher Smokestack Books will cease operations by the end of the year. JOHN GREEN looks back at its achievements
21st Century Poetry / 23 October 2024
23 October 2024
by Megan Pattie
THE STATE v THE PEOPLE: (left-right) Dr Larch Maxey, Extinct
Poetry review / 23 October 2024
23 October 2024
PAUL LAUGHLIN welcomes a collection whose central issues embrace class, unemployment and the benefits system 
Attila the Stockbroker Diary / 19 October 2024
19 October 2024
The Bard, happily press-ganged by Pirates, tunes up for Christmas
Ian Macdonald, 3 cobles, 1973. The exhibition of Macdonald
21st Century Poetry / 16 October 2024
16 October 2024
by Jenny Smith
21st Century Poetry / 9 October 2024
9 October 2024
by p.a. morbid
21st Century Poetry / 2 October 2024
2 October 2024
by Steve Pottinger
SISTERHOOD: Diane Abbot and Lucie Scott
21st Century Poetry: / 26 September 2024
26 September 2024
from LUCIE SCOTT
21st Century Poetry: / 18 September 2024
18 September 2024
by PIPPA LITTLE
Palestinian women look at the destruction after an Israeli a
21st Century Poetry / 10 September 2024
10 September 2024
by Hiba Abu Nada
IF I SHOULD DIE: Palestinians check the bodies of their rela
21st Century Poetry / 9 September 2024
9 September 2024
RUTH AYLETT recommends a remarkable collection that is collective in its grief and serious in its demand for solidarity 
21st Century Poetry: / 4 September 2024
4 September 2024
by Harry Gallagher
21st Century Poetry / 3 September 2024
3 September 2024
by Hywel Griffiths
21st Century Poetry: / 27 August 2024
27 August 2024
by John Kendall Hawkins
21st Century Poetry: / 14 August 2024
14 August 2024
by DECLAN GERAGHTY
Poet Fred Joseph
Interview / 13 August 2024
13 August 2024
John Kendall Hawkins speaks to black US poet FREDERICK JOSEPH, author of We Alive, Beloved
POETRY IN MOTION: The Scotland players thank the fans after
Poetry / 7 August 2024
7 August 2024
ALISTAIR FINDLAY welcomes a fine collection of football poems that celebrate a generational shift in both the sport and the culture
Pro-immigration supporters outside the Holiday Inn Express i
21st Century Poetry / 7 August 2024
7 August 2024
by Matthew Paul
Palestinians inspect the rubble of a school destroyed in an
21st Century Poetry / 31 July 2024
31 July 2024
by Sohail Salem
Frederick Joseph in 2021
21st Century Poetry: / 22 July 2024
22 July 2024
JOHN KENDALL HAWKINS applauds a new volume by black US poet Frederick Joseph, that is precisely cadenced and breathing with lyricism
21st Century Poetry / 10 July 2024
10 July 2024
by Steve Harrison
Workers outside Tata Steel's Port Talbot steelworks in south
21st Century Poetry: / 8 July 2024
8 July 2024
by FRED VOSS
Alan Ginsberg, 1979
Opinion / 8 July 2024
8 July 2024
GEORGE MOURATIDIS examines the way American beat poets exposed the sickness of a society that sought to contain them
21st Century Poetry / 3 July 2024
3 July 2024
by Simon Haines
21st Century Poetry / 3 July 2024
3 July 2024
by Dave Medd
FLUSH THEM OUT: Attila joins the Clacton anti-sewage movemen
Attila the Stockbroker Diary / 28 June 2024
28 June 2024
Armed with helpful visual aids, the bard campaigns furiously against sewage both literal and metaphorical
21st Century Poetry / 26 June 2024
26 June 2024
by Rick Dove
21st Century Poetry / 17 June 2024
17 June 2024
by Jemima Foxtrot
21st Century Poetry / 17 June 2024
17 June 2024
by Amanda Huggins
21st Century Poetry / 12 June 2024
12 June 2024
by Marge Piercy
(L) Clockwise from top L: Chilean poets Raul Zurita and Vero
Interview / 10 June 2024
10 June 2024
LEO BOIX talks to Richard Gwyn about Latin American poetry, translation and enduring literary friendships 
21st Century Poetry / 5 June 2024
5 June 2024
by Jackie Kay
Jackie Kay MBE, Chancellor of the University of Salford, Apr
21st Century Poetry / 5 June 2024
5 June 2024
RUTH AYLETT recommends a new collection that is direct and open to all, both conversational and radical
21st Century Poetry / 28 May 2024
28 May 2024
by Vince Mills
STONKING VICTORY: Adur is taken by Labour for the first time
Attila the Stockbroker / 17 May 2024
17 May 2024
Breaking news: Tories routed in Costa del Geriatrica! Bob Crow honoured in Wakefield! Anti-fascists promoted to the Bundesliga!
21st Century Poetry / 15 May 2024
15 May 2024
by Mike Cowley
21st Century Poetry: / 6 May 2024
6 May 2024
by Jim Greenhalf
Attila in front of the Shepherds Bush Empire in London
Attila the Stockbroker diary / 2 May 2024
2 May 2024
ATTILA reports on a valiant attempt at removing the ghastly Tory majority on Adur Council, which “has festered there for decades like a pair of mouldy underpants” and on a more cheerful note he salutes The Men they Couldn’t Hang on their 40 years in the business of resistance
21st Century Poetry / 30 April 2024
30 April 2024
by Julian Bishop
EZRA POUND: ‘Less rhetorical din’ and ‘fewer painted a
21st Century Poetry / 30 April 2024
30 April 2024
ALISTAIR FINDLAY recommends a collection of interviews with 15 award-winning poets discussing how their initial drafts became the finished poem
21st Century Poetry / 29 April 2024
29 April 2024
A selection of poems old and new from the Moning Star poetry editors to celebrate May Day
21st Century Poetry: / 15 April 2024
15 April 2024
by FINOLA SCOTT
21st Century Poetry / 14 April 2024
14 April 2024
by Merryn Williams
Ilya Ehrenburg visits tank crews on the Russian front line 1
Poetry / 9 April 2024
9 April 2024
ALISTAIR FINDLAY recommends the first representative selection in English of the poetry of the Soviet war correspondent Ilya Ehrenburg
Some of the migrants and refugees, estimated as more than 20
21st Century Poetry: / 3 April 2024
3 April 2024
by AMIR DARWISH
Miners come off the last shift at Kellingley Colliery in Kno
21st Century Poetry / 20 March 2024
20 March 2024
By John Foggin
21st Century Poetry / 13 March 2024
13 March 2024
By Dareen Tatour
21st Century Poetry / 6 March 2024
6 March 2024
by Emma Must
Women on the picket line at the Orgreave Coking Plant near R
21st Century Poetry / 5 March 2024
5 March 2024
by Sarah Wimbush
21st Century Poetry / 28 February 2024
28 February 2024
by Nick Catlin
21st Century Poetry / 21 February 2024
21 February 2024
by Mary Gilonne
21st century poetry / 14 February 2024
14 February 2024
by Paul Birtill
21st century poetry / 14 February 2024
14 February 2024
by Rob Walton
Yinka Shinibare's sculpture to commemorate David Oluwale, Hi
21st Century Poetry / 19 January 2024
19 January 2024
RUTH AYLETT draws attention to a remarkable campaign to commemorate the tragic death of David Oluwale
JOHN MACLEAN: Portrayed a stained-glass window, unveiled in
Poetry / 3 January 2024
3 January 2024
Morning Star poetry co-editor ALISTAIR FINDLAY surveys a new collection published in celebration of John MacLean
Attila the Stockbroker Diary / 28 December 2023
28 December 2023
The Bard makes a seasonal offering of hope to all the little children and all students of Orwell  
Benjamin Zephaniah unveils an English Heritage blue plague f
Britain / 28 December 2023
28 December 2023
21st century poetry / 28 December 2023
28 December 2023
by JOHN NEWSHAM
21st century poetry / 20 December 2023
20 December 2023
by GILLIAN MELLOR
Former Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn joins members of th
Book Review / 6 November 2023
6 November 2023
ALISTAIR FINDLAY welcomes the rare left perspective on poetry that is invited by a new anthology edited by Corbyn and McCluskey
21st Century Poetry: / 4 October 2023
4 October 2023
ALISTAIR FINDLAY introduces the work of the four women poets whose work will feature on our pages this month
Features / 23 September 2023
23 September 2023
On the 50th anniversary of the mysterious death of Pablo Neruda, JIM JUMP looks at how the life of the poet and communist was inextricably linked to two notorious dictators
21st Century Poetry / 23 August 2023
23 August 2023
by DAVID BLEIMAN  
21st Century Poetry / 8 August 2023
8 August 2023
By Louise Machen
House and bust of Yiannis Ritsos, Monemvasia, Greece
Literature / 26 June 2023
26 June 2023
CHRIS DAVIS admires a great communist poet through the lens of a vital and sensitive new translation