MARIA DUARTE, FIONA O’CONNOR and ANDY HEDGECOCK review Savage House, Enzo, Madfabulous, and Erupcja
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Josephine Corcoran - Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe says sorry
Well Versed is edited by Jody Porter
CHRIS SEARLE recommends a work of love and deep admiration for a great musician
KENNY MacASKILL relishes a fictionalised account of the life and death of the principled Irish anti-colonialist, executed for betraying his English imperial masters
FIONA O’CONNOR admires an ambitious first novel that loosens South Africa’s rainbow collective to examine the racial tensions within
Aussie mining corporation murder, Liverpudlian ex-cop amnesia, a naive vigilante tries to reset capitalism, and the riddle of the dead psychoanalyst
SYLVIA HIKINS is persuaded by an entertaining play that the true miracle of Lourdes would be for attitudes toward disability to change
Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe says sorry
The Head of the Metropolitan Police gives evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee about three girls missing in Syria
Clearly it’s a terrible situation
That they find themselves in
Having lost their daughters
In such a horrible way.
I can only half imagine
What a parent is going through
So in that sense
I am sorry they’re in this situation.
I’m sorry we gave the letters addressed to them
To their daughters.
The letters telling them their daughters
Were friends with a girl who’d gone to Syria.
It must be horrible to know
That Shamima, Amira and Kadiza
Aged 15, 15 and 16
Have left for Syria
To join Islamic State.
I can only half imagine.
Clearly it’s a terrible situation.
In that sense I am sorry.
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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
Since 2023, Strike Map has evolved from digital mapping at a national level to organising ‘mega pickets’ — we believe that mass solidarity with localised disputes prepares the ground for future national action, writes HENRY FOWLER