WILL STONE samples the 20th anniversary atmosphere of this eclectic end-of-season indie festival
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21st-century poetry
Collections from Neil Fulwood, Carolyn Forche, Isabella Morra, Caroline Maldonado and John Gohorry
Translating the untranslatable: David Shankbone
[David Shankbone]
Comics are not just superheroes and spandex – it can be public art, telling public stories, suggests HARRIET EARLE
The bard serenades the Diggers of Wigan and their festive followers
ALEXEI SAYLE speaks to Angus Reid about a lifetime of protest, how to hone political art – and what to do now
ANDY HEDGECOCK, JAMES WALSH, LEO BOIX and MARIA DUARTE review Just An Illusion, Everybody Digs Bill Evans, Blue Film, Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger, and Runner
MARIA DUARTE recommends a nerve-wracking reconstruction of the 72 hours before the Normandy landings
THERE’S a great poem in Neil Fulwood’s new collection which addresses the difficulty of saying what sometimes needs to be said in poetry:
“I give you a poem about the state of things/You say it’s cynical and pessimistic/You ask for something positive/You ask for a nice poem/I show you a newspaper headline/You say you don’t follow current affairs/You say politics is boring/You ask for a nostalgic poem.”
Can’t Take Me Anywhere (Shoestring Press, £10) is a wonderfully gruff collection of minimalist urban landscapes — witty and scathing about work, politics, traffic, weather and the inanities of contemporary life. It’s a book of strong individual poems too, notably All Day Long, Peril, 20 Zone, Lizard and the splendidly bleak England:
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Conman conned in a twisty thriller, blind trust tested to the limit, cunning murder methods, and tip-top police procedural
RON JACOBS is enthralled by Roberto Saviano’s portrait of heroes and deplorables, that calls for people to stand up for themselves and the things they believe in
ANDY CROFT welcomes the publication of an anthology of recent poems published by the Morning Star, and hopes it becomes an annual event
KEN COCKBURN relishes the memoir of a translator, but wonders whether the autobiography underlying the impulse would make a better book