MARIA DUARTE recommends a remarkable study of the friendship between a Palestinian and a Pakistani, broken by a hostile state
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21st century poetry: Al-Shifa Waiting Room
by JOHN NEWSHAM
MATTHEW HAWKINS rakes through un-fancy words and flair-free summaries to find who and what might be flamboyant
PETER MASON is exhilarated by an exciting, well-considered and historically minded tribute to the great Trinidadian instrument
Reducing historical lives to ‘male’ and ‘female’ roles, we lose the nuance of those lives and a clearer understanding of past societies, suggests CLAIRE ISABELLA GILMOUR
CHRIS SEARLE relishes the genius of pianist Alexander Hawkins, his many ensembles, and his new album
They dug their tunnels straight down
through the floor of the cancer ward.
That’s why we were forced to enter.
That’s why we had to administer
our precise and effective anaesthetic.
We found the WMDs beside the MRIs-
the ones Saddam kept hiding for so long.
That’s why we called upon our chemotherapy guns
to neutralise all traces of malignancy.
And in that smoky room, beneath the dialysis machines,
were cowering the last three escapees out of Alcatraz.
We hooked them up. We drained every toxin.
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