STEPHANIE BROWN draws attention to the hidden labour of the female embroiderers, and how a 19th century replica made no such error
THE TITLE poem of Adamantine (Pighog Press, £13.95) by Anglo-Canadian writer Naomi Foyle, is about Elisabeth Fritzl, held captive as a sex slave for 24 years by her father:
“I don’t know how you did it,/but Elisabeth, you survived./Didn’t starve yourself to death./Didn’t smash your brains out... you were always/your own lodestone,/a glinting adamant/hidden, growing, drilling/through the walls.”
Adamantine is a strong book about strong women like Fritzl, celebrating the tenacity and brilliance of those who refused to break under extreme pressure.
Amid rising hostility and division, the answer to fear and frustration is not isolation but the organised solidarity that built working-class communities, says MATT KERR
NORMA AUSTIN HART reports from a conference on on the rights of women prisoners in the Scottish criminal justice system
ANDY CROFT welcomes the publication of an anthology of recent poems published by the Morning Star, and hopes it becomes an annual event
AMANDA J QUICK warns about the ever-expanding influence of the sex industry – and the harm it unleashes on both the women involved and society collectively, especially the young


