STEVEN ANDREW welcomes the third instalment of autobiography by a libertarian socialist whose political work is charged with Gramscian realism
Willow warbler
PETER MASON suspends his disbelief and disappears down a rabbit hole on the London Tube
WILL PODMORE welcomes a well-written and pacey account of the run-up to the 2024 general election
PETER MASON welcomes the national tour of an irreverent show that switches the spotlight to the wives of Henry VIII
DAVID NICHOLSON, eight-year-old BEHATI and nine-year-old SKYLAR applaud a hilarious production that doesn’t ignore the social message
SUSAN DARLINGTON is unmoved by a production full of spectacular tableax but without emotional connection to the characters
STEVE JOHNSON applauds an outstanding album that is a celebration of achievements won through collective struggle
Hearing a Willow Warbler on Howth Head, April 2020
by Francis Devine
Half baffled by the wind,
there it is, first of the year,
the sallypecker’s trilling song,
flittering somewhere among
saffron whin, matted tangle
of bracken, couch and briar.
It is a thrilling, tonal emollient,
soothing lockdown despair,
lifting the spirit, a welcome
renewal, its first-thing-on-arrival
carnal clarion, unintended for us,
but a beautiful misplacement.
Francis Devine is a retired Trade Union Tutor with the ITGWU/SIPTU and a former editor of Saothar, the Journal of the Irish Labour History Society. 21st-century Poetry is edited by Andy Croft, email info@smokestack-books.co.uk
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1930-2024
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