Latest editorial
GORDON PARSONS recommends an entertaining account of the years between Germany’s defeat in WWI and Hitler’s seizure of power
Unforgettable scores
Recent releases from radical small-scale presses are more in tune with the times than much of the output from the poetry establishment
MIGUEL YOSHIDA explains the evolution and influence of the Cuban Casa De Las Americas in joining culture to the revolutionary struggle
ANDY HEDGECOCK is charmed by a skilful adaptation of Tove Jansson’s lyrical portrait of three generations of a family, overcoming grief
ALEX HALL treads warily through a messy, dialectical struggle fought in the mundane machinery of driving licences, criminal law, and birth registries
MICHAL BONCZA, FIONA O’CONNOR, JAMES WALSH and ANGUS REID review Atlas of Disappearance, Love Me Tender, Bouchra, and This Tempting Madness
Flitting between myth and the modern world, Medusa is determined to steer clear of human affairs. When her resolve crumbles, the result is petrifying in every sense
THE UNEXCITING news that Andrew Motion has won the Ted Hughes prize and James Fenton the PEN Pinter prize and that Simon Armitage has been elected Oxford Professor of Poetry has done little to dispel the impression that the contemporary poetry scene is a small and closed world of mutual self-congratulation.
It’s not that these poets are without merit or distinction. But it all looks a bit predictable, not to say dull.
Meanwhile, a long way from the arts-coverage-by-press-release world of the broadsheets and the BBC, it is left to energetic — and usually unpaid — editors working at independent, provincial presses to keep the doors open for different kinds of voices and experiences.
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ALAN MORRISON explores, and recommends, a remarkable collection of poems that explore war photography with the moral responsibility of a documentary film-maker
by Mike Jenkins
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