Reviews of Test Dept, Madli Marje Gildemann, and Heinz Holliger and Marie-Lise Schupbach
Latest editorial
Labelling An Immigrant
by JENNY MITCHELL
JOHN GREEN appreciates an informative and readable account of the nation state and its current dilemmas, but doubts the solutions this author has to offer
JOHN MCINALLY recommends that this rational, reasonable and devastating case against the End Of Life Bill be read by every serious socialist activist
CHRIS SEARLE urges you not to miss Mark Sanders’ three night residency at Cafe Oto, Dalston, London
JENNY MITCHELL surveys the work of Hurvin Anderson, now a centrepiece of Britain’s white-dominated art establishment, and explores some of the complexities it opens up about British Caribbean identity
SOPHIE STOLL wallows in a fine live recording of old blues-infused folk songs immersed in American blue-collar culture
ANGUS REID and MARIA DUARTE review DJ Ahmet, Redoubt, They Will Kill You, and The Magic Faraway Tree
I feel them heavier some days, the wide seams
of my clothes no longer swaying when I walk,
as if the thread takes on the weight of every curse
since I crawled from a boat, sopping wet, weighed
down by nights spent under stars as water crashed.
Curse words meant to block my path rear up to grab
me by the scruff, labelling An Immigrant. Men stop
to hack the words, aiming at my hem to see me stumble
when I walk. Ever since my country’s lost, I’m deep
in mourning clothes, family buried in the soil.
Saliva seeps through cloth even though I scrub —
hands raw — would throw the clothes away, but money
is too scarce. It is my fault for running from the bombs
that destroyed the fabric of my home, all I had
worn on my back, clothes failing to protect.
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