SIMON PARSONS is discomfited by an unflichingly negative portrait of motherhood and its trials
Late equaliser
ALISTAIR FINDLAY welcomes a fine collection of football poems that celebrate a generational shift in both the sport and the culture
PAUL FOLEY recommends an extraordinary double bill that packs a punch and leaves you reeling
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a play about AI that results in a deadening disconnect for its audience
SIMON PARSONS applauds an insightful state-of-the-nation play that explores the growing class divide in South Africa
MATTHEW HAWKINS pays tribute to the performance artist and costumier, Leigh Bowery
SIMON DUFF reviews a new composition by German composer and pianist Florian Weber that blurs the line between where improvisation ends and composition begins
New releases from The Jim Mullen Quartet, Caroline Kraabel/John Edwards, and Matthew Muneses/Riza Printup
We Are Scottish Football
Julie McNeill, Luath, £7.99
THE publication of Julie McNeill’s new collection was perfectly timed to coincide with the Euros and future Women’s World Cup qualifiers. Its poetic focus may be on Scotland but its reach is global because football is global, as it has been since at least the 1950s as a male domain.
In capitalist terms women’s football is being sponsored because it has brought to the market a new audience of young girls and women with a growing fan base — mums, aunts, grannies, sisters, dads, uncles, boy and girl friends. It has already created a new infrastructure of players, coaches, trainers, physios, managers, scouts, pitches, referees and football strips being sold with the names of female football stars.
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 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
ALISTAIR FINDLAY introduces the work of the four women poets whose work will feature on our pages this month
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RUTH AYLETT recommends a new collection that is direct and open to all, both conversational and radical
ALISTAIR FINDLAY recommends a collection of interviews with 15 award-winning poets discussing how their initial drafts became the finished poem
