Angela Croft - Nascent Star

I glance at the Daily Worker
across the railway
from my office window

open my post, clear my in-tray
check the galley proofs —
an article about dockside cranes

size up copper blocks
bleed the pictures off the page
like the crimson reaper

edit copy on a clapped out Olivetti
choose the type-face —
wonder if you pay union rates

read about the Cold War —

flirt with Vladimir Script

This poem is published as part of National Poetry Day 2012, theme: stars.

In the ’60s Angela Croft worked in one of the many publishing houses in Clerkenwell as an editor of trade and technical magazines, opposite the offices of the Daily Worker. A few years prior to it being relaunched as the Morning Star, she heard a bomb go off in their building as she sat at her desk. Born in Surrey and experiencing a childhood split between north Wales, Cornwall and London, Croft was shortlisted for the Bridport Prize in 2009 and is widely published.

Well Versed is edited by Jody Porter

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