ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
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Fatima’s Bird
by Mike Jenkins
SUE TURNER welcomes a thoughtful, engaging book that lays bare the economic realities of global waste management
JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
MICK McSHANE rubs shoulders with Mod legend Steve Craddock and joins in with the joyous Glasgow choir
DENNIS BROE sifts out the ideological bias of the newest TV series offerings, and picks out what to see, and what to avoid
There among fragile homes
of wood, card, nylon,
is Fatima with her bird.
7 years and 7 months
of never being sure.
“If he dies so do I.
But he has kept me alive,
comes everywhere with me.”
She grips the cage,
the bird her heart flutters.
He is her family, her friend.
perhaps he senses, shrieks
at threats from above.
She will never let go.
Even night-time he’s there :
a guide for her dreams,
a flight from her nightmares.
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