The East End of London was a crucible for radical ideas and activism, including the women’s suffrage movement, fired in part by the deprivation and inequality experienced by so many of its inhabitants.
Rip Bulkeley describes the planning and production of a forthcoming anthology of poems responding to the fire in Grenfell Tower .
Richie McCaffery examines a new anthology of Palestinian poetry, edited by Naomi Foyle, and finds it eye-opening
Fiona Sinclair commends Michael Rosen’s use of poetry to make some telling political points
James Roderick Burns has no doubts about the importance of Mayakovsky’s epic poem about Lenin in a new Smokestack edition by Rosy Carrick
Merryn Williams is doubly impressed – both by Andy Croft’s finely crafted poetry and by its subject, the unfairly neglected writer and activist, Randall Swingler
A temporary installation in Bloomsbury Square is a powerful reminder of the work of exiled Russian poets in the last century
When Neville Chamberlain declared war on Germany on 3rd September 1939, the country he led was by no means united in its opposition to Hitler. The English aristocracy numbered many Nazi sympathisers in its ranks, who would have welcomed the introduction of a regime modelled on the Third Reich into their country during the 1930’s.
Following in Fitzgerald’s Footsteps: Brian Docherty reviews Ruth Valentine’s small but politically significant and beautifully illustrated new collection from Hercules Editions
Ruth Valentine considers the balance between politics and poetics in Alan Morrison’s new collection
Caroline Maldonado welcomes Cristina Viti’s recent translation of a 1968 poem-cycle by Elsa Morante
Interesting? I’ll Say!
John Lucas reviews a genuinely interesting collection of essays by Jim Burns – and adds some equally interesting observations of his own