Ron's rages are sincere and — according to his wife — healthily cathartic. But can these splenetic outbursts loosen the grip of capitalism at its most monstrous?
HAVE you ever noticed how the word “poet” is increasingly accompanied by the automatic prefix “award-winning”?
National Poetry Day — when a panel of award-winning poets give an award to an award-winning poet — is no longer a celebration of poetry but of the PR machinery of corporate publishers.
As poet and publisher Michael Schmidt has argued: “Poetry prizes are now the vehicle of literary reception. Control the prizes and you control the culture of reception.”
19.01.1930-23.04.2026
Kate Clark pays tribute to Ricardo, whose life spanned the hopes of Allende’s Chile, the horrors of military dictatorship and decades of campaigning for justice in exile
Two inspring books — that’s your New Year’s musing from me on January 2 2026
ANDY CROFT welcomes the publication of an anthology of recent poems published by the Morning Star, and hopes it becomes an annual event
ANDY CROFT rallies poets to the impossible task of speaking truth to a tin-eared politician


