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.
politics
European Solidarity Centre, by Barbara Lewis. Many of us can spell Solidarnosc, because we’ve seen it written so many times in the bold, red logo created by Jerzy Janiszewski in the early days of the Solidarnosc movement credited with toppling Communism in eastern Europe and leading to the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Poetry review – YOU HAVE NO NORMAL COUNTRY TO RETURN TO: Alwyn Marriage finds herself sharing some of the discontent expressed in Tom Sastry’s poems
Poetry review – COUNTRY OF ARRIVAL: Wendy French is moved by Hubert Moore’s collection speaking for the displaced and persecuted
THE NAKED WORLD: Sue Wallace-Shaddad follows Irina Mashinski on her autobiographical journey in prose and poetry
Poetry Review – SMOKESTACK LIGHTNING: Merryn Williams greets an important anthology which celebrates the 200th publication from Smokestack Books
HOPE IS A GIRL BORN IN A KYIV BUNKER – a personal response by Shanta Acharya to the Russian invasion of Ukraine
Poetry review – FIVE SCENES FROM A FAILED REVOLUTION: Edmund Prestwich is moved by Ashur Etwebi’s vivid glimpses of the continuing crisis in Libya
Poetry review – IMPORTENTS: Rennie Halstead feels the force of Naomi Foyle’s response to the ills of contemporary society
Hot Air: The Inside Story of the Battle Against Climate Change Denial. By Peter Stott. Review by Barbara Lewis.
A year before the Kyoto Protocol committed the developed world to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions, Britain’s Education Act of 1996 incorporated the Thatcher government’s 1986 Education Act that was designed to deal with a perceived issue of left-wing teachers indoctrinating school pupils. Two decades on, mathematician Peter Stott found himself defending climate science against its deniers, who used Thatcher’s legal legacy to take to the High Court their objections to Al Gore’s climate change documentary An Inconvenient Truth being streamed in schools.
REBEL TALK – Bill Jenkinson surveys a collection of poems on the climate emergency compiled and edited by Rip Bulkeley
Poetry review – SANCTUARY: THERE MUST BE SOMEWHERE: Tim Murphy considers Angela Graham’s thought-provoking – and mildly collaborative – debut collection
By Michael Bartholomew-Biggs • books, poetry reviews, politics, religion, year 2023 • Tags: books, poetry, politics, religion, Tim Murphy