GABRIELE NEHER draws attention to an astoundingly skilled Flemish painter who defied the notion that women cannot paint like men
Latest editorial
21st-century poetry
Collections from Neil Fulwood, Carolyn Forche, Isabella Morra, Caroline Maldonado and John Gohorry
Translating the untranslatable: David Shankbone
[David Shankbone]
The Bard pays homage to Hull’s finest promoter and venue, and awards Douze Points to Laibach
KEVIN DONNELLY outlines how the bourgeois institutions inhibit our ability to to view art in revolutionary ways, and suggests some tactics to overturn it
ANDY HEDGECOCK welcomes an accessible - and optimistic - take on our relationship to new technology
JOHN GREEN suggests that a new, biased, and highly readable re-hash of the story of the Cambridge Five be taken with a large pinch of salt
BRENT CUTLER welcomes a timely reminder of the long history of protests and the outdoor spaces in which they takes place
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:
Similar stories
KEN COCKBURN relishes the memoir of a translator, but wonders whether the autobiography underlying the impulse would make a better book
ANDY CROFT rallies poets to the impossible task of speaking truth to a tin-eared politician
FIONA O'CONNOR recommends a biography that is a beautiful achievement and could stand as a manifesto for the power of subtlety in art
LEO BOIX introduces a bold novel by Mapuche writer Daniela Catrileo, a raw memoir from Cuban-Russian author Anna Lidia Vega Serova, and powerful poetry by Mexican Juana Adcock