SIMON PARSONS applauds the psychological study of prisoners dealing with a frighteningly oppressive world endured by far too many
Women Against Pit Closures
by Sarah Wimbush
RON JACOBS appreciates the suspenseful style of a biography of the path to Lula’s first presidency, and the lessons it contains for working class self-organisation
CHRIS SEARLE translates the fusion of four jazz maestros into a mental image of Hackney Carnival
A bucket-list of visuals, the unsung heroine of IVF, queer love in the City of London, and half a musical: The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE reviews Blink, Joy, Layla and Wicked
by Martin Goldie
She blooms
badged and blue-jeaned
in the sunshine.
In the shadows -
her husband
her father
her sons,
the gate
the hearth
the alarm clock, ringing.
This hybrid rose -
her eyes, anthracite on fire
her lips, the curve of a pickaxe.
New Aphrodite.
One of the first
to clamber up, up, up
and over
the pit-yard wall.
Sarah Wimbush is a Yorkshire poet. Her first collection, Shelling Peas with My Grandmother in the Gorgiolands, was published by Bloodaxe in 2022. Her new collection, STRIKE (Stairwell, 2024) commemorates the 40th anniversary of the miners’ strike 1984-85.
Poetry submissions to thursdaypoems@gmail.com
More from this author
ANGUS REID time-travels back to times when Gay Liberation was radical and allied seamlessly to an anti-racist, anti-establishment movement
ANGUS REID speaks to historian Siphokazi Magadla about the women who fought apartheid and their impact on South African society
ANGUS REID mulls over the bizarre rationale behind the desire to set the life of Karl Marx to music
ANGUS REID applauds the portrait of two women in a lyrical and compassionate study of sex, shame and nostalgia
Similar stories
by Merryn Williams
As hundreds of women gather in Durham today to celebrate their role in fighting pit closures 40 years ago, HEATHER WOOD reflects on experiences in her own mining community, Easington in County Durham
by Mary Gilonne
ALISTAIR FINDLAY recommends a brilliant collection of poems written to accompany stunning images of the Miners’ strike