MARIA DUARTE, JAMES WALSH and ANDY HEDGECOCK review The Invite, My Father’s Island, Nirvanna: the Band, the Show, the Movie, and Oh My Goodness!
Outside the One Stop
Myfanwy Fox
A puddle’s sludge has settled
beneath its skin of oil.
Khaled proffers his Big Issues
to oblivious passers-by.
Our wettest winter’s clouds
reflect as livid bruises
in an diesel sheen.
When the next storm breaks
shoppers abandon pavements
for Costa’s welcome
or the Co-Op’s familiar aisles.
Khaled takes refuge
in the doorway
of a boarded-up bookshop.
Hail stones pock the puddle’s
gunmetal slurry.
ADRIAN WEIR charts the intercontinental trade union solidarity with Cuba and its desperate predicament
ALAN MORRISON recommends a consummate, heart-warming collection about a working-class upbringing in the industrial north-east
ANDY CROFT welcomes the publication of an anthology of recent poems published by the Morning Star, and hopes it becomes an annual event


