GABRIELE NEHER draws attention to an astoundingly skilled Flemish painter who defied the notion that women cannot paint like men
JOHN GOHORRY'S Thirty-three Ostrich Cadenzas (Shoestring, £6) tells the story of the Japanese ostriches who escaped from a farm after the Daiichi nuclear reactor meltdown in Fukushima in 2011.
It begins as a sort of extravagant black comedy. The ostriches take over the deserted town of Okuma, where they drink in bars, mate in bookshops and establish the utopian “Autonomous Ostrich Republic.”
When the “moonsuits” arrive with their Geiger counters, the ostriches are sent to the Tokyo Agricultural University for tests and experiments.
Read this book and be aware that this is our history, says RUTH AYLETT
ANDY CROFT welcomes the publication of an anthology of recent poems published by the Morning Star, and hopes it becomes an annual event
ANDY CROFT rallies poets to the impossible task of speaking truth to a tin-eared politician
by Marjorie Lotfi



