The bard celebrates two other fine practitioners of the art, and laments a lost brewer
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Four poems by Sarah Fletcher
Well Versed is edited by JODY PORTER
This right-wing conspiracy theory is used to justify the coercive measures against gender, race and labour rights that best serve capitalism, attests GAVIN O’TOOLE
KENNY MONROSE recommends a new exhibition that highlights the significance of Black British music
ANGUS REID is bowled over by an exuberant film about the making of Keith Jarrett’s legendary concert
MARIA DUARTE, FIONA O’CONNOR and ANDY HEDGECOCK review Savage House, Enzo, Madfabulous, and Erupcja
CHRIS SEARLE recommends a work of love and deep admiration for a great musician
Lads
With them, sex feels like miming drowning;
with gapped mouths gasping, their rower’s arms
too heavy from the drink to pull them back
to shore, the thrashing, the feeling
of being below the surface, the grabbing.
& waking next to them in morning,
the bed having spat back their sleeping bodies
to the sun, having fished them into sobriety
like a plastic bag wrenched from a river,
when they are on their backs and gorgeous
like funeral home corpses —
this is when they are most beautiful —
Similar stories
ALAN MORRISON recommends a consummate, heart-warming collection about a working-class upbringing in the industrial north-east
Gisele Pelicot said ‘shame must change sides.’ We may think we agree, but, argues LOUISE RAW, society still has some way to go
by Widad Nabi
The Labour Party proposal to scrap benefits for those unable to work will be debated in Parliament next Tuesday, and threatens the most vulnerable in our society. ALAN MORRISON presents some responses in poetry