RON JACOBS welcomes a timely history of the Anti Imperialist league of America, and the role that culture played in their politics
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ALISTAIR FINDLAY welcomes a fine collection of football poems that celebrate a generational shift in both the sport and the culture
POETRY IN MOTION: The Scotland players thank the fans after the UEFA Women's Euro 2025 qualifying match against Serbia won 1:0 and played at Firhill Stadium in Glasgow on July 16 2024
STEVE ANDREW appreciates a passionate account of the Scottish Club during the ‘lost decade’
By telling the story of a lawless frontier town from the point of view of the Lakota, Chinese labourers, prostitutes and displaced prospectors, makes for a potted history of capital, suggests ALEX HALL
TONY BURKE speaks to Gambian kora player SUNTOU SUSSO
MARIA DUARTE recommends a British boxing biopic about the stormy relationship between Nazeem Hamed and his trainer Brendan Ingle
ANDY HEDGECOCK and MARIA DUARTE review Good Night, and Good Luck: Live from Broadway, Becoming Victoria Wood, Hamnet, and Song Sung Blue
CHRIS SEARLE speaks to Filipino-US saxophonist JON IRABAGON about the threat of AI in the time of Musk and Trump, and how an artist can respond
We Are Scottish Football
Julie McNeill, Luath, £7.99
THE publication of Julie McNeill’s new collection was perfectly timed to coincide with the Euros and future Women’s World Cup qualifiers. Its poetic focus may be on Scotland but its reach is global because football is global, as it has been since at least the 1950s as a male domain.
In capitalist terms women’s football is being sponsored because it has brought to the market a new audience of young girls and women with a growing fan base — mums, aunts, grannies, sisters, dads, uncles, boy and girl friends. It has already created a new infrastructure of players, coaches, trainers, physios, managers, scouts, pitches, referees and football strips being sold with the names of female football stars.
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ANDY CROFT welcomes the publication of an anthology of recent poems published by the Morning Star, and hopes it becomes an annual event
RUTH AYLETT reviews two collections of outright political poetry
by Abeer Ameer
ALISTAR FINDLAY is mesmerised by this multiple ‘Visions of Scotland’ assault on the audience’s eyes and senses