LEO BOIX, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MARIA DUARTE review Dreamers, It Was Just An Accident, Folktales, and Eternity
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Valentine Ackland: A Transgressive Life
Revelatory biography of poet and political activist
Valentine Ackland, feeding cats
[Sylvia Townsend Warner Society]
JENNY MITCHELL, poetry co-editor for the Morning Star, introduces her priorities, and her first selection
HENRY BELL is sceptical of the notion that ‘progress’ is an ideology that the ruling class uses exclusively to camouflage appropriation
In search of political understanding, MATTHEW HAWKINS welcomes a critique of anti-semitism as codified by the Israeli state
BEN CHACKO welcomes a masterful analysis that puts class struggle back at the heart of our understanding of China’s revolution
JOHN GREEN is intrigued by the ethereal, ghostly quality of images of a London unobscured by the bustle of humanity
VALENTINE ACKLAND’S skills as a poet are relatively well known but what has always been missing until now is an understanding of the vast and important contribution she made to what she saw as the political state of the world and the plight and poverty of the forgotten individual.
As the author of this biography Frances Bingham comments: “Valentine’s work expands the history of a fascinating individual into that of a wider community.”
Ackland is best know for cross-dressing and being the lover of Sylvia Townsend Warner and all the many affairs are here, but so too are her wide-ranging passions as poet, activist, lesbian and peace campaigner.
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