Review by Neil Fulwood, editor of the superb website Chainlink
There is a technique in poetry, borrowed from Apophatic Theology, called the via negativa, whereby attention is drawn to the subject by dint of its absence. This new anthology, subtitled Poems for Keir Starmer, takes the via negativa to its logical extreme. With painstaking aesthetic focus and laser-like editorial precision, Andy Croft has assembled a roster of fifty cutting-edge contemporary poets, none of whom have a single damn thing to say about the incumbent Prime Minister of this septic isle.
Described thusly by its publishers – “a monument to the towering contribution to socialist thought of Sir Keir Starmer KCB QC, and his decisive, principled and unifying part in the proud history of the Labour Movement … a moving tribute to his irresistible charisma, warmth and wit” – Release the Sausages, its title a reference to Starmer’s conflation of human beings with dead meat, consists of 20 perfectly blank pages. It contains no poems whatsoever. In shepherding this volume into not-much-print, Croft has arguably defined an existing form into a new version of itself.
The Keir negativa.
The poets involved deserve a roll call for no other reason than to bulk out this review with an extra paragraph:
Anthony Anaxagorou, Ruth Aylett, Bob Beagrie, David Betteridge, Malika Booker, Jane Burn, Jo Colley, Martyn Crucefix, Amir Darwish, Claudia Daventry, Jonathan Davidson, Alan Dent, Imtiaz Dharker, Steve Ely, Alistair Findlay, Naomi Foyle, Neil Fulwood, Owen Gallagher, Simon Haines, Martin Hayes, W.N. Herbert, Kaycee Hill, Khadijah Ibrahim, Mike Jenkins, Tom Kelly, Fran Lock, Adam Lowe, Rebecca Lowe, John Lucas, Alexis Lykiard, Chris McCabe, Kevin Patrick McCann, Roy McFarlane, Edward Mackinnon, Caroline Maldonado, Jenny Mitchell, Alan Morrison, Nick Moss, Christopher Norris, Antony Owen, Peter Raynard, Karl Riordan, Anna Robinson, Michael Rosen, Martin Rowson, Stephen Sawyer, Gerda Stevenson, Michael Stewart, Paul Summers, Joelle Taylor, Rob Walton, Rushika Wick, Merryn Williams, Mike Wilson and Sarah Wimbush.
More random comments
I would be remiss if I did not address my own contribution, as this is the kind of thing that would normally negate one from reviewing duties. (Also I can get an extra extra paragraph out of it.) Essentially, the remit was such that the non-contributions would be thematically consistent, therefore my non-poem exists within the same intellectual dimensions as, say, those of Imtiaz Dharker, John Lucas and Anthony Owen. Indeed, I could have picked any three other contributors at random, I just went for that triumvirate because Imtiaz Dharker is my absolute favourite living poet, John Lucas has published four of my collections, and Anthony Owen is a mate and a rock solid bloke to boot.
Moreover, the chances of me quoting myself or singling my non-poem out for special attention are minimal to the point of non-existent. I’ve been through the anthology page-by-empty-page umpteen times and I’ll be buggered if I could tell you which page my non-poem is on.
In preparing this review, I was fortunate enough to secure an interview with Andy Croft, in which I asked him five questions and withheld another five from him so that CHAINLINK could feature a Q&A which at least partially captures the feel of the book.
Unhesitatingly, I commend Release the Sausages. It is available as a download or a print version. I would urge you to buy the latter and use its pages as you see fit. Personally, I crafted an homage to Kneecap and wrote “fuck Keir Starmer” as many times as I could. But I kept it classy and used invisible ink.
Q&A with Andy Croft
CHAINLINK: How did the project originate?
ANDY CROFT: The many and spectacular disasters of the Starmer government’s first twelve months were hardly a surprise. These people never disappoint you. In the absence of any apparent ambition other than to be in office, without any real popular support, with no allies, and lacking what Dennis Healy called ‘hinterland’, sooner or later Starmer was always going to embrace the default right-leaning political loyalties of every British government since Thatcher. However, the speed with which they threw away the opportunity was still something of a shock to many of us. We tend to assume that our enemies are serious professionals, knaves rather than fools. But if we are governed by a fool, it seemed appropriate to laugh at him. And in doing so, to provide an oppositional focus for poets, to bear witness, to express dissent and to help to isolate the enemy.
How difficult was it to persuade 50 poets to submit nothing?
This was, I suppose, the easiest book I have ever edited. Almost everyone I approached was very keen not to submit a poem about Starmer. A small number did not want to be involved. One thought the idea sounded ‘cruel’; another that it seemed sectarian. A few never replied. But there are plenty of poets, and more enough material for a sequel.
Did anybody break the rules and actually submit something?
There was one poet who didn’t want to be part of the project but who later sent me a rather good poem about Starmer.
In the film adaptation of the anthology, who would play Keir Starmer?
John Cleese is always good at combining self-importance, bossiness and ineffectiveness. Claud Rains (The Invisible Man)? Billy Bob Thornton (The Man Who Wasn’t There)? Alternatively, Michael Redgrave was brilliant as the unprincipled Ramsay McDonald figure in the 1947 film of Howard Spring’s Fame is the Spur.
How best should readers fill the empty pages of the anthology?
There should be just about enough space to record the deaths of Palestinians killed by the IDF
at food-distribution points, and the number of occasions that Starmer has insisted on Israel’s
‘right of self-defence’.
Some Questions and Answers…
Is Martin Rowson’s cover illustration a savage caricature or a work of photo-realism? I really can’t tell.
In a straight fight between Starmer and the Invisible Man, who would win?
In the Rolling Stones lyric “the man who squats behind the man who works the soft machine”, do you think either Keir Starmer or Morgan McSweeney bothered to read the instruction manual for the soft machine?
How long, do you reckon, until Rachel Reeves signs up for I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here?
Have any of the sausages been released?
Neil Fulwood was speaking to Andy Croft
