In his fortnightly column MARK SEDDON reflects on the death of Major Oak and why such ancient trees matter to us
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AN ANONYMOUS self-appointed critic once wrote: “Is it poetry? Shame on you” on the cover of a Poetry Library copy of Rising, the ‘zine stuck together by poet Tim Wells for the past 22 years.
One man’s trash talk is another man’s high praise. Wells photocopied the defaced copy and ran it as the cover of the next issue of Rising, whose slogan is “Tough on poetry. Tough on the causes of poetry.”
For him, the seemingly harsh criticism fell boot-step in line with Rising’s ethos. The seed for the zine was planted in the early 1980s, when Wells and pockets of young working-class white people — mainly men — and West Indian immigrants discovered that disaffection and poetry gave them an outlet for their frustrations.
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Two inspring books — that’s your New Year’s musing from me on January 2 2026