Poetry

It goes on one at a time,
it starts when you care to act,
it starts when you do it again after they said no,
it starts when you say we and know who you mean,
and each day you mean one more.

Marge Piercy

Wednesday, 30 January 2019 19:41

Shabbigentile

Written by Peter Raynard

in Poetry

Peter Raynard introduces Alan Morrison's new collection, Shabbigentile, available here In novels and films, plays even, there are state-of-the-nation portrayals aplenty. From Dickens to Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem, the rich and the poor are double acts on a political stage that is the United Kingdom. In poetry? Not so much. The…

Tan Raptures

Thursday, 24 January 2019 10:18

Shayari: the progressive power of Urdu poetry

Written by Chris Norris

in Poetry

Shayari by Christopher Norris In a Delhi hockey stadium in December, about 100,000 people of various ages, genders, and classes flooded in for two days of poetry, debates, food and calligraphy sessions. It was Jashn-e-Rekhta, a three-day Urdu cultural festival, and its popularity reflects a wider appreciation for Urdu poetry.…

Portrait of Robert Burns (after Skirving)

Tuesday, 22 January 2019 20:01

Robert Burns the Democrat

Written by Norrie Paton

in Poetry

Download PDF Norrie Paton introduces this well-known pamphlet by J. R. Campbell, Robert Burns: The Democrat, which was first published in 1945, and has now been republished by the Communist Party of Britain. It is available above as a free downloadable pdf, with the permission of the CPB. I was…

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Tuesday, 15 January 2019 14:18

Franz Magnitz Lied

in Poetry

Written by Kevin Higgins

The latest squib from Kevin Higgins follows these events and is a re-write/parody of the Horst-Wessel song, see here. Frank Magnitz Lied* after Horst Wessel by Kevin Higgins We button tight our leather breeches. We prance down Friedrichstrasse, everything clenched.Our comrade, Frank, laid gloriously low on the car-park concreteby what…

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Thursday, 10 January 2019 21:42

Ach well, all livin language is sacred: the Glasgow voice of Tom Leonard

in Poetry

Written by Jim Aitken

Jim Aitken presents an appreciation of the language, politics and class anger of Tom Leonard, and Peter Clive has contributed a poem about him, placed at the end of Jim's essay. Today we think of literature as providing inexhaustible forms and of language as being incredibly versatile and varied –…

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Wednesday, 05 December 2018 17:27

It's a new morning

in Poetry

Written by Marilyn Francis

It’s a new morning by Marilyn Francis It’s a new morningpay attentionto the pig’s headand its mouthful of fleshpay attentionto the workersin stolen trainersand nowhere to run. It’s a new morningover fieldsover orchardsand broke-back pickerspicking for next-to-nothingpay attentionto the babyripping up booksin his cot. It’s a new morningover Gotham Citya…

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Saturday, 29 December 2018 12:05

The Roscommon evictions: Leader of Irish Government Speaks Out Against Hyperbole

in Poetry

Written by Kevin Higgins

Leader of Irish Government Speaks Out Against Hyperbole after William Shakespeare by Kevin Higgins There has been much hyperbolic comment of lateabout the admittedly rather sad case of a man who had his new corneas removedby two blokes from Lithuaniaor Neilstown (somewhere like that) because he fell behind with the…

Roscommon evictions

Friday, 21 December 2018 10:46

Our comrade saints, whose unmade faces are empty airports: two poems by Fran Lock

Written by Fran Lock

in Poetry

In need of saints by Fran Lock no one else to share my slanted fate. god wasroutine unrelenting splendour; too fine and fara thing to help. nervous and compelled betweenthe corridor, the alleyway, or any place a slackluck failed. pain like tearing paper; painlike biting through a glass. spasm, cramp.…

Friday, 21 December 2018 10:09

Share the segments and abandon yourself: two poems by Jane Burn

Written by Jane Burn

in Poetry

The Orange in the Stocking by Jane Burn The scent of citrus fills the quiet room as socks swing from the radiant mantelpiece – a conga line of Nora Batty’s legs. Warmth from the fireplace rises, dances them in its drift – when we are asleep on Christmas Eve, they…

Friday, 21 December 2018 09:37

Happy Brexmas, For Folk's Sake: two poems by Jim Mainland

Written by Jim Mainland

in Poetry

Happy Brexmas by Jim Mainland The turkey’s chlorine-washed bish-boshed well and truly stuffed and there’s no room at the Wetherspoon’s so go give birth in a foodbank, you citizen of nowhere, you queue-jumper you plank! And goodbye wise-guy Magi (we’ve had enough of experts) and, Oi, shepherds, watch your backs…

Monday, 17 December 2018 11:28

A hammer ringing out like a Beethoven trumpet

Written by Fred Voss

in Poetry

A hammer ringing out like a Beethoven trumpet by Fred Voss The new young machinist is in lovewith the steel blockhe holds his machinist tool square up against it and liftsthe block with all the muscle in his arms up againstthe lightstreaming through a high machine shop window and sees…