GABRIELE NEHER draws attention to an astoundingly skilled Flemish painter who defied the notion that women cannot paint like men
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.
Read this book and be aware that this is our history, says RUTH AYLETT
ALAN MORRISON recommends a consummate, heart-warming collection about a working-class upbringing in the industrial north-east
ANDY CROFT welcomes the publication of an anthology of recent poems published by the Morning Star, and hopes it becomes an annual event
RUTH AYLETT reviews two collections of outright political poetry



