ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
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Willow warbler
SUE TURNER welcomes a thoughtful, engaging book that lays bare the economic realities of global waste management
JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
MICK McSHANE rubs shoulders with Mod legend Steve Craddock and joins in with the joyous Glasgow choir
DENNIS BROE sifts out the ideological bias of the newest TV series offerings, and picks out what to see, and what to avoid
Hearing a Willow Warbler on Howth Head, April 2020
by Francis Devine
Half baffled by the wind,
there it is, first of the year,
the sallypecker’s trilling song,
flittering somewhere among
saffron whin, matted tangle
of bracken, couch and briar.
It is a thrilling, tonal emollient,
soothing lockdown despair,
lifting the spirit, a welcome
renewal, its first-thing-on-arrival
carnal clarion, unintended for us,
but a beautiful misplacement.
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1930-2024
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Legendary poetry publisher Smokestack Books will cease operations by the end of the year. JOHN GREEN looks back at its achievements
1930-2024