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Release a Rage of Red

Release a Rage of Red

£8.00
Every year it becomes more of a challenge to judge these poems. This year, there was a large number of beautifully written, often angry, urgent and deeply moving poems on a wide range of compelling issues, including many more entries from women and young people. Our ‘Unite in Schools’ programme takes us round schools to talk to young people about trade unions and the kind of collective action that’s needed to campaign against inequality. We need to run a version of this fabulous competition in schools, colleges and universities, to support the young activists of tomorrow to creatively express their growing, sharpened sense of inequality, along with support for their ability to self-organise and to harness social media. – Mary Sayer, Unite Education Officer
The Folded Lie

The Folded Lie

£10.00
n September 1939, W. H. Auden wrote these words: All I have is a voice To undo the folded lie 80 years later, another politically conscious and technically skilful poet rises to the challenge of ‘unfolding the lie’, as Christopher Norris’s eloquent and combative voice rings out, as sharp and satirical as Auden. In the light of the forthcoming general election, a more topical collection of politically committed poetry would be hard to imagine. The author of The Trouble with Monsters (Culture Matters, 2019) writes poems based on topical events which broaden out to reveal, lampoon and lament the underlying problems of capitalist society. Conflicts relating to gender, inequality, migration, ethnic difference, culture wars and generational barriers are all unearthed and firmly linked to the fundamental class differences which divide capitalist societies.
arise! filmpoem

arise! filmpoem

£7.00
Culture Matters has produced a short film, made by Carl Joyce, of the poem arise! by Paul Summers, sponsored by the Durham Miners' Association. You can watch the film for free on Vimeo here or on Youtube here. The film invokes the collective and co-operative spirit of past generations of men and women who worked and struggled so hard to survive, to build their union, and to arise, organise, and fight for a better world by forming the Labour Party. It also celebrates the new spirit that has arisen in Corbyn’s Labour Party, and the rise of support for socialist solutions to the country’s growing problems of low wages, poverty, homelessness, and other signs of an unfair and corrupt system designed to benefit the many, not the few.
The Children of the Nation: An Anthology of Working People’s Poetry from Contemporary Ireland

The Children of the Nation: An Anthology of Working People’s Poetry from Contemporary Ireland

£11.00
This is a unique anthology of poetry in both Irish and English by Irish working-class writers from the thirty-two counties of Ireland, edited and introduced by Jenny Farrell. There are sixty-seven contributors, women and men, of all generations, including both emerging and established writers. The common focus is on themes which reflect the texture and preoccupations of working-class life in contemporary Ireland. It has been generously supported by the Irish Trade Union movement.
Witches, Warriors, Workers

Witches, Warriors, Workers

£9.00
This new and unique anthology has poetry in both Welsh and English by around 70 Welsh working-class writers. There are women and men, of all generations, including both emerging and established writers. Gustavius Payne, a well-known Welsh artist, has provided stunningly appropriate paintings to accompany some of the poems in the book. Mark Serwotka, General Secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union writes this in the Foreword: The poems collected in “Onward / Ymlaen!” cover a diverse range of political themes and issues including poverty and class inequality, self-determination, internationalism, war, living on a council estate in Swansea, and the death of Jo Cox. This is a valuable book and will be of interest to many people in Wales and across the UK, at a time when the political landscape is changing so dramatically. These changes have meant that times are hard for many people, but our movement has always had room for poetry and song. As the old radical poem says, “Hearts starve as well as bodies: Give us Bread, but give us Roses.” Mike Jenkins, editor of Red Poets, says this: This anthology brings together the finest radical political poetry from contemporary Cymru, reflecting the importance of community, co-operation and commitment to building a better world. There is sharp criticism, sad reflection, heartfelt protest and bitter humour in these poems. But there is also a sense of renewal, of what might develop from grassroots movements and activism. 
Almarks

Almarks

£11.00
Almarks: an Anthology of Radical Poetry from Shetland edited by Jim Mainland and Mark Ryan Smith, with images by Michael Peterson ISBN: 978-1-912710-20-1 What is radical poetry? And can it change anything? The poems in ‘Almarks’ are radical in different ways. Some are explicitly political in content, while others are more indirectly observational and personal. Some are radical in style and approach, such as in their use of Shetland dialect.
A Kist of Thistles

A Kist of Thistles

£10.00
A Kist of Thistles: An anthology of radical poetry from contemporary Scotland, edited by Jim Aitken, with images by Fiona Stewart. 196 pps. ISBN: 978-1-912710-32-4 A Kist of Thistles is a new anthology of radical Scottish poetry. It is edited and introduced by Jim Aitken, an Edinburgh-based writer and lecturer, and illustrated with images by Fiona Stewart.
Sacred Symphony

Sacred Symphony

£12.00
Sacred Symphony is a new collection of poems on life in inner-city Dublin by Karl Parkinson, with images by Peter O'Doherty, ISBN: 978-1-912710-33-1 It is introduced by Father Peter McVerry, who writes this in the Introduction: Those who are economically unproductive are considered a drain on the economy, undeserving of support. Those who are homeless, addicted or long-term unemployed are not just excluded from society, but unwanted by society.
Climate Matters

Climate Matters

£0.00
Climate Matters: A collaboration between Riptide Journal and Culture Matters, edited and introduced by Virginia Baily, Sally Flint and Mike Quille In 2019 we challenged writers and artists to address the burning topic of the climate crisis and question its relationship with capitalism. In 2020 Covid–19 erupted and spread across the world. The whole of this anthology has been assembled under the on-going but ever-changing restrictions imposed by this pandemic, which has necessarily coloured the content in ways that we could not have foreseen when we put out the call for submissions.
From the Plough to the Stars

From the Plough to the Stars

£4.00
From the Plough to the Stars: An Anthology of Working People’s Prose from Contemporary Ireland - outof print, EBOOK only This is the follow-up volume to Children of the Nation: An Anthology of Working People's Poetry from Contemporary Ireland, published in 2019. Like that book, it aims to express working people's perspective on life. There are 50 contributions from the whole island of Ireland, driving home the fact that their life experience as working people is the same, no matter where on the island they live, on which side of the border, rural or urban, female or male, younger or older, writing in Irish or English.
The Sikh Snowman

The Sikh Snowman

£12.00
Some snowmen had topknots. Some wore football scarves and skull caps. Some had veils over their faces. One had fairy wings. They all began to sing...... Snowfall, friendship and feelings combine in this heartfelt and celebratory story about coming together. There's a relatable and joyous sense of wonder as the snow starts and as the friends pull together to build their snowman. Filled with heart, hope and humanity, it is easy to imagine The Sikh Snowman becoming a firm favourite. - Jake Hope, Youth Libraries Group. The Sikh Snowman, by Owen Gallagher with artwork by Fiona Stewart, ISBN 978-1-912710-29-4.
Where We Get Magic From

Where We Get Magic From

£13.00
We tend to think that feeding and watering our kids is enough. Job done. We’re so busy making a living ourselves that we gladly hand them over to schools and to social media, to be fed the mainstream culture. But that culture broadly supports the status quo. It does not do enough to produce confident kids with an imaginative ability to challenge and change the status quo.
Over Eagle Pond

Over Eagle Pond

£12.00
Organised around beautiful and careful observations of the natural world, Over Eagle Pond avoids the temptations of rage and despair that weaken so much Covid poetry, successfully addressing large, global events via the local and the particular. The accompanying drawings by Martin Gollan are reminiscent of Paul Hogarth and are the perfect complement to the poems. –   Andy Croft Over Eagle Pond, poems by Chris Searle with drawings by Martin Gollan, ISBN 9-78-1-912710-42-3
Ghosts of the Early Morning Shift

Ghosts of the Early Morning Shift

£12.00
Scotland’s radical credentials, past and present, are evident throughout the pages of this new anthology, the companion volume to the anthology of radical poetry, A Kist of Thistles, published in 2020. The first part of the anthology contains Memoirs, and the second part contains Flash Fiction with Short Stories.
William Blake at the Bridge Hotel

William Blake at the Bridge Hotel

£10.00
This new poetry anthology is edited and introduced by Paul Summers and illustrated with photographs by Dan Douglas. Ten local poets are presented, diverse in style but unified by their progressive politics and class. Their visions of the city and its people straddle an epoch which has witnessed deindustrialisation and the dismantling of traditional working-class communities, and the transition to a more nuanced, multicultural and complex reality. The anthology is sponsored by UNISON Newcastle City branch and Newcastle Trades Union Council.
Fire in My Head

Fire in My Head

£12.00
Moya Roddy’s new collection of stories catapult us into the minds and hearts of working-class people who, despite a class system that offers them very little, reveal their own strength and potential through friendship, community and solidarity.
Land of the Ever Young

Land of the Ever Young

£12.00
This is the final book in a set of three volumes of working people’s writing from contemporary Ireland. It follows on from a poetry anthology, Children of the Nation and a prose anthology, From the Plough to the Stars, all edited by Jenny Farrell and available here.
Gwrthryfel / Uprising: An anthology of radical poetry from contemporary Wales

Gwrthryfel / Uprising: An anthology of radical poetry from contemporary Wales

£12.00
Gwrthryfel / Uprising takes us on a journey to the heart of Cymru. Edited by Merthyr writer Mike Jenkins, co-editor of ‘Red Poets’ magazine, with artwork by Gus Payne, this ambitious anthology of radical poetry explores Cymru’s history, hardships, rebellions and resistances. The book is sponsored by Merthyr Trades Council, the GMB union, and Left Unity Cymru.
Declarations of Love

Declarations of Love

£12.00
This collection of beautifully illustrated love poems ranges from protesting the inequities and cruelties of our fragmenting world to delight in the variety and beauty of creation, and from a fierce compassion for the 'cry of the poor' to tender recollections of family and friends. These poems evince a radical empathy that lives electrically on the page. Aitken’s poems are illustrated by Martin Gollan, whose dynamic penmanship carries a similar sense of energy and defiance. Gollan’s illustrations lend Aitken’s work an urgency and immediacy, emphasizing the poems’ enmeshment in the ever-changing political world.
The Haunting: Deleted Scenes, by Kevin Patrick McCann

The Haunting: Deleted Scenes, by Kevin Patrick McCann

£5.00
It's an unsettling poetic riff on the 1963 film The Haunting, and the book that inspired it, The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, McCann’s poems traffic in the uncanny and the unsaid, merging moments from across the house’s long and morbid history into a single, though unstable, present. Just as Jackson’s novel is a story of frustrated passions and repressed pain, McCann’s poems also deal in the missing, the buried, the deliberately obscured. This book is now available as a pamphlet, ISBN 978-1-912710-58-4.
Wolves Come Grovelling

Wolves Come Grovelling

£10.00
Thirty poems in various forms and styles—rhyme, blank verse, free verse, villanelle, and ‘villanelle-vague’—tackle the seismic events and vicissitudes of recent years: Brexit, Grenfell and the “hostile environment”, the proroguing of Parliament, Boris Johnson’s shambolic premiership, Covid and the lockdowns, “Partygate”, Trump’s insurrection, the resistible rise of Keir Starmer, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Platinum Jubilee, the JUST STOP OIL protests, the death of Elizabeth Windsor and the suppression of republican expression during the mourning period, and the Coronation.
Machine Language

Machine Language

£10.00
Martin Hayes has long been one of the most prolific and original poets of labour writing in this country. In Machine / Language he further details our descent into enmeshment with the apparatus of our oppression: an oppression that functions legally through the economic exercise of state power, and intellectually, through the operation of language. Within neoliberal society personal identity becomes fused at the bone to our economic output; we are swallowed whole by our designation as workers and compelled to identify with a system that slowly destroys us. In this regard Machine / Language can be read in a number of ways: as a document of struggle, an aesthetic meditation, an act of solidarity, and a mode of resistance.
Dungheap Cockerel

Dungheap Cockerel

£12.00
The mission of Culture Matters is to promote cultural democracy. This means providing articles and works of art for people whose views and voices go largely ignored by the ruling classes of late capitalist Britain. We aim to be a platform where the oppressed and exploited can develop and express their own intellectual and artistic output. In the summer of 2023 no minority was more brusquely and effectively suppressed than republicans. Our new anthology, Dungheap Cockerel, has been created in a few weeks to counter that injustice with satires on monarchy in general and its latest incumbent in particular. It is available as a free downloadable pdf in the Poetry section, and we have also printed a few books.
Yer Ower Voices

Yer Ower Voices

£12.00
Yer Ower Voices! is an anthology of dialect poetry in Welsh and English. The book is divided by geographical regional dialects: Swansea, The Valleys, Cardiff/ Newport, and North & West Wales. It is  the first anthology of its kind ever published.
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