JAN WOOLF wallows in the historical mulch of post WW2 West Germany, and the resistant, challenging sense made of it by Anselm Kiefer
Poets are not born but made
ALISTAIR FINDLAY recommends a collection of interviews with 15 award-winning poets discussing how their initial drafts became the finished poem
ANA ISABEL NUNES points to the empowering legacy of Augusto Boal’s Theatre Of The Oppressed
CARLOS MARTINEZ welcomes the publication of the writings of the great Palestinian author, political theorist and spokesman for the PFLP
The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE review Cottontail, Memoir of a Snail, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, and Captain America: Brave New World
PAUL DONOVAN is fascinated by an account of the long history of Catholic Church’s involvement in espionage
ROGER McKENZIE welcomes an important contribution to the history of Africa, telling the story in its own right rather than in relation to Europeans
DAVID NICHOLSON welcomes an overdue revival of WNO’s classic production, complete with protests against cuts
Voice of the Hoover: Review of The Process of Poetry
ed Rosanne McGlone
Fly on the Wall Press, £10.99
FOR budding left poets and interested readers, I recommend The Process of Poetry, a rare and relatively cheap book (£10.99). It comprises interviews with 15 award-winning poets discussing how their initial drafts became the finished poem. Both draft and final version are given, thus allowing the reader to look virtually over the shoulder of the poet through the whole process of composition.
This returned me to the 1990s and the half-dozen Arvon week-long residential writing courses I attended myself tutored by the likes of Liz Lochhead, Tom Leonard, Kathleen Jamie, Jackie Kay, Fred D’Aguiar, Brendan Kennelly, Mimi Khalvati, Brian McCabe — poet laureates, gold medal-winners et al.
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