To celebrate International Workers’ Day, Culture Matters is pleased to announce the publication of a new book of poems, The Last Days of Alicante, by Alan McGuire, with an Introduction written by Fran Lock.
In this collection of poems, Spain’s troubled past mixes with the everyday routines, sights, sounds and tastes of Alan McGuire’s adopted homeland. Like any keenly observant Briton living in Spain, poet Alan McGuire can see the legacy of the country’s civil war all around him.
The past is never far away in this debut collection. There are tender love poems mixed with snapshots of Spanish life – a cup of coffee in a bar, a sudden downpour, adoration of the Virgin at a fiesta, children playing in a plaza, the bustle of a restaurant. But the most powerful poems are those in which McGuire conjures up the tragic events of the last century. The title of the collection is a clue to one of them.
There are also poems dedicated to the Miguel Hernández, a poor, self-taught goatherd from Alicante province who became a renowned poet. He died in extraordinarily harsh conditions in Franco’s gulag, having been sentenced to death, commuted to 30 years imprisonment, for being a Communist commissar and for writing poems harmful to the Francoist cause.
– Jim Jump, Chair of the International Brigades Memorial Trust
The Last Days of Alicante is one of those rare books that you sit down, read at one sitting, pour another cup of coffee and then read it again…not because it was difficult, obscure or yet another “tour de force” but because it’s such a joy to read. The poems are deceptively simple. There are no linguistic back flips, no sleight of hand, just honest words that conjure honest emotions. Beautifully crafted and above all, poetry that matters.
– Kevin Patrick McCann, poet
The Last Days of Alicante by Alan McGuire, ISBN 978-1-912710-82-9, is available here for £8 for a print version, with an ebook available here for £5.
