A PHYSICAL EDUCATION: John Lucas considers Jonathan Taylor’s perceptive and accessible discussion of the causes and consequences of authorised cruelty in schools and beyond
history
Poetry review – IMPERFECT BEGINNINGS: Anne Ryland is touched by the powerful and painful poetry in this collection by Viv Fogel
Poetry review – AGAIN BEHOLD THE STARS: Emma Storr admires a prize-winning historical sequence by Alex Josephy
Poetry review – HAIL SISTERS OF THE REVOLUTION: Kelly Davis admires Caroline Gilfillan’s tribute to a 1970s band of freedom fighters
Poetry review – LEARNING FINITY: Clare Morris admires the use of memory and story in these poems by Deborah Harvey
Archaeological Museum of Heraklion and Palace of Knossos. By Barbara Lewis. Regarded as the first advanced civilisation in Europe, Minoan Crete dated from around 3000 BC until around 1100 BC, preceding ancient Greece.
LAST ON HIS FEET: JACK JOHNSON AND THE BATTLE OF THE CENTURY: Charles Rammelkamp reviews a shocking and powerful graphic novel by Youssef Daoudi & Adrian Matejka
Poetry review – BEWARE THE TRUTH THAT’S MANACLED: Harriet Thistlethwaite reviews Prue Chamberlayne’s poetic exploration of slavery and its aftermath
Museum of New Zealand/Te Papa Tongarewa. Review by Barbara Lewis. In their desperation to get New Zealand’s founding document signed, the British in undue haste drew up a Maori version of the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi that is disputed to this day.
Poetry review – TRAVELLERS OF THE NORTH and HARALD IN BYZANTIUM: Edmund Prestwich considers two collections, by Fiona Smith and Kevin Crossley-Holland, that give voice to characters from history
White. Review by Carla Scarano. The exhibition at the School of Historical Dress in Lambeth is displayed in one large room on the ground floor; it features white pieces of cloth and garments and accessories from the school’s rich collection.
Poetry review – BRIDGING TIME 1944-2024: Thomas Ovans is moved and intrigued by Patricia Townsend’s sonnet sequence incorporating and responding to wartime letters from her father.
By Michael Bartholomew-Biggs • added recently on London Grip, books, history, poetry reviews, year 2025