In their humble domestic lives, my grandmothers were not romantic and did not fight for civil or women’s rights. They did not personify any ideal of femininity or heroic endeavour. They simply carried on with their ordinary lives caring for their families and working hard.
society
Poetry review – RENTED: Pat Edwards engages with a challenging collection by Sue Johns
Poetry review – THE LAST DINOSAUR IN DONCASTER: James Roderick Burns finds gritty lyricism in a promising first collection by Sarah Wimbush
Poetry review – AT RISK: Rennie Halstead admires the way that Diana Cant has made poetry from her insights gained as a child psychotherapist
Head First: A Psychiatrist’s Stories of Mind and Body by Alastair Santhouse.
Santhouse has found his destined niche in an NHS office, with mismatched furniture and absolutely no view, where he tries to fathom the very adult issues of desperate people on the edge of our society, many of whom have flummoxed every other medical department.
NEVER HIT A WOMAN, EVEN WITH A FLOWER … Kate Ashton takes a close look at recent collections by Sasha Dugdale and Patricia McCarthy and considers how well they respond to the serious issues they address
CLOSING TIME AT THE ROYAL OAK: Richie McCaffery admires the way that John Lucas has embedded perceptive social observation in a history of his local pub
The Florentines: From Dante to Galileo. By Paul Strathern, Published April 1, Atlantic Books. Review by Barbara Lewis.
The Arctic: Culture and Climate: Resilience and an enduring thriving culture characterise the population living in the Arctic, a large area in the North Pole comprising Greenland, Alaska, some of the northern territories of Canada, and parts of Siberia and Scandinavia.
The Rome Plague Diaries, Lockdown Life in the Eternal City: In times when many of us have been wondering why we didn’t get ourselves stranded near a Caribbean beach, Matthew Kneale decided there was nowhere on the planet he would rather be locked down than where he was in his adoptive city of Rome.
Tantra: enlightenment to revolution, British Museum. Review by Carla Scarano. culture and tradition are as alive as ever today, as the comprehensive and exhaustive exhibition at the British Museum shows.
Poetry review – WHATSNAME STREET: Rennie Halstead explores last-century Lambeth as portrayed in Anna Robinson’s authentic and entertaining collection
By Michael Bartholomew-Biggs • books, history, poetry reviews, society, year 2021 0 • Tags: books, history, poetry, Rennie Halstead, society