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.
The North East poetry scene remains defiantly at odds with the culture of careerism, show business and narcissism disfiguring so much of contemporary British literary culture. These ten poets represent an alternative tradition of the writer as cultural activist, writing about a people, a place and a proletariat.
– Andy Croft, poet and publisher
We welcome and support this new anthology of poetry, rooted in the everyday experience of some of our finest creative writers, thoroughly engaged with local history and with current social and political issues, and authentically reflecting many of the problems and difficult situations as well as the joys and satisfactions of working people on Tyneside.
– Martin Levy, President, Newcastle Trades Union Council
William Blake at the Bridge Hotel: Ten Newcastle Poets, ISBN 978-1-912710-23-2, £10 inc. p. and p.
