JAMES WALSH is moved by a provocative and original take on the relationship between ecology and architecture, and a plea to work with, not against, the materials and minerals of our world
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An inseparable bond
Politics is not only compatible with poetry but actually an integral part of it. But it is a proposition shunned by much of the poetry establishment today, argues ALAN MORRISON
An immersive, participatory display by a queer Australian Aboriginal performer, and a rebellious unravelling of traditional Scottish dance
EWAN CAMERON witnesses a political farce that lacks a clear message
EWAN CAMERON picks out two fascinating music shows, fusing the Korean, and the Celtic, with the modern
BENJAMIN POTHIER suggests that Palaeolithic cave paintings in Spain point to the ceremonial use of hallucinogenic flora
The bard confirms that the right has a humour bypass, and replays the English Revolution on period instruments
POETRY, and all literature, is essentially a communal phenomenon. Its prime purpose is to communicate as widely as possible and share ideas and experiences, notions unfashionable in a capitalistic and postmodernist poetry “mainstream.”
That mainstream is often characterised by one-upmanship and individualistic careerism although also, ironically, a striking uniformity of style.
It is sponsored by what are effectively poetry corporations or monopolies — the hedge-funded Poetry Book Society, the all-encompassing Poetry Society, the “top” metropolitan imprints and, most pervasively of all, the poetry prize and competition circuit.
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