The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE recommends an impressive impersonation of Bob Dylan
Hell’s kitchen workers
ALISTAIR FINDLAY introduces the work of the four women poets whose work will feature on our pages this month
The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE reviews Here, Vermiglio, William Tell and Wolf Man
New releases from Thorpe and Morrison, Daria Kulesh, and Will Finn and Rosie Calvert
RINA ARYA confronts the brutal operation of Francis Bacon’s approach to portraiture
Emphasising his continuous engagement in labour movement struggles, ALISTAIR FINDLAY salutes John Foster’s contribution as activist, strategist, intellectual and defender of the Morning Star
ANDY MIAH advocates the use of AI to assist people by expanding access to global literature and culture
EWAN KOTZ relishes a veteran Glasgow band that have lost none of their verve for live performance
CHOOSING poems for the weekly Thursday Poem slot and monthly review hinges on what arrives via email, new collections, gleanings from leftist culture magazines and broad left anthologies.
My previous reviews and selections for April and July both featured single collections by men, but this month it’s all women poets, varying in age, style, publishing history and topic and who collectively contradict the kind of stereotypes that once confined women’s writing to “ecriture feminine,” taken apart in Elma Mitchell’s 1967 poem Thoughts After Ruskin, and available online:
Women reminded him of lilies and rosies,/ Me they remind rather of blood and soap,/ Armed with a warm rag, assaulting noses,/ Ears, neck, mouth and all the secret places:// Armed with a sharp knife, cutting up liver,/ Holding hearts to bleed under a running tap,/ Gutting and stuffing, pickling and preserving,/ Scalding, blanching, broiling, pulverizing,/ - All the terrible chemistry of their kitchen.
More from this author
ALISTAIR FINDLAY welcomes a collection of essays from one of the cultural left’s most respected speakers and activists
ALISTAIR FINDLAY welcomes a fine collection of football poems that celebrate a generational shift in both the sport and the culture
ALISTAIR FINDLAY recommends the first representative selection in English of the poetry of the Soviet war correspondent Ilya Ehrenburg
ALISTAIR FINDLAY recommends a brilliant collection of poems written to accompany stunning images of the Miners’ strike
Similar stories
MEIC BIRTWHISTLE speaks to David Constantine about the fascination he shares with Brecht for the material exactness of Greek poetry
ALISTAIR FINDLAY welcomes a fine collection of football poems that celebrate a generational shift in both the sport and the culture
ALISTAIR FINDLAY recommends a collection of interviews with 15 award-winning poets discussing how their initial drafts became the finished poem
by Merryn Williams