This year marks the 20th anniversary of Red Poets, the annual magazine of left-wing poetry, articles and reviews, as well as a loose collective of performers. Issue 20 will be launched in September in Merthyr Tydfil.

The magazine and collective were born out of the political group - some even dared call it a party - Cymru Goch (Red Wales) which was active between 1987 and 2002.

For a small group of left activists who worked closely with their communities, Cymru Goch enjoyed no small influence.

It began the anti-poll tax struggle in Wales and also the more recent fight against private finance initiatives (PFI) and even produced the monthly paper Y Faner Goch (The Red Flag). But its most lasting legacy has been Red Poets.

A remarkable continuity has been maintained in the group as several former members still play vital roles. Both I and the co-editor Marc Jones were the founders, with Marc coming up with the original name Red Poets' Society, a take on the Hollywood film.

Red Poets have always tried to bring their poetry, with its mixture of politics and humour, to places where it may not have ventured before, such as working-class pubs and clubs where poetry is often seen as an elitist art form.

In almost every instance the audience has responded positively, astonished that poetry can be so relevant to their lives.

Invariably, one or two locals join in on the open microphone and some have ended up joining the collective.

Only recently they read at the Castle Hotel in Tredegar, the birthplace of Aneurin Bevan."

Though some members have been with Red Poets for the full 20 years, they see themselves more like a rolling snowball, gathering poets along the way.

Among past regulars was singer-songwriter Labi Siffri, who had moved to Abergavenny and had just started publishing his poetry.

His stark, confessional work about his experiences of being black and gay was a strong feature of those days.

Red Poets are non-sectarian and a typical issue will contain poems by members of Plaid Cymru, the Communist Party, the Labour Party, the Green Party and the SWP while most, like myself, are probably not members of any party.

To mark Mrs Windsor's Jubilee they produced a one-off collection Poems For A Welsh Republic which sold out in one night and showed that socialist republicanism remains a strong strand within the Red Poets and their audiences.

Many demonstrated in Merthyr against the Queen's visit to one of Europe's poorest towns and one of our members was arrested only to be released, without charge, once her trip to the valleys had ended.

The magazine has undergone significant changes down the years and our website www.redpoets.org has become ever more important, with many of the past issues now available online.

However, live performances are still depended upon to sell the magazine and all collected funds go into publishing the next issue.

To illustrate the magazine's diversity, the latest issue includes a poem by the communist dockers' leader of the 1960s Jack Dash, a translation of the former national poet of Cuba Nicolas Guillen by Alun Hughes and a poem by Welsh language activist Jamie Bevan, which he wrote while in prison serving a sentence for actions taken during campaigning for the Welsh language.

There is also an obituary to Alun Hughes, once a Communist Party organiser, who died not long before issue 19 came out. Alun will be greatly missed - he contributed many articles, poems and translations from Russian, Spanish and German.

Exciting times lie ahead. On April 25 Red Poets will be performing for the first time outside Wales at the Bird's Nest pub in Deptford, London, and in June they are launching Subversive Lines, the first ever collection of poetry by Tim Richards which includes poems he has contributed to every issue bar the first.

Booker Prize-winning novelist James Kelman once called Red Poets "the best thing happening in poetry" and for a project originally intended to only produce one issue the group's sheer determination and longevity is a very rare thing.

Well Versed is edited by Jody Porter.
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