CHRIS SEARLE recommends a work of love and deep admiration for a great musician
The Kensington Renaissance
Russell Bennetts
May I project
weakened wobbles,
waxed tentacles,
surplus cut and
clad in bolted knots?
The Court of Alderman sought
help from the city’s commoners.
Surly corporation,
the original, 1376.
Remember when Brutalism was young?
79-plus backs to the wall,
this whacking little pill
she’s got for us
is a charred chasm.
Adopt a family
with what now tweeted
with what now marched.
Pressed to the wall, dying,
we got their backs.
ALAN MORRISON recommends a consummate, heart-warming collection about a working-class upbringing in the industrial north-east
ANDY CROFT welcomes the publication of an anthology of recent poems published by the Morning Star, and hopes it becomes an annual event
RUTH AYLETT reviews two collections of outright political poetry
by Widad Nabi


