Red Sky at Night by Andy Croft
An anthology of British socialist poetry. It starts with William Blake, John Clare, Charles Dickens and Shelley, and ends with Carol Ann Duffy, Benjamin Zephaniah, Jackie Kay and Mr Social Control. Here we have the poetry of the first world war (Isaac Rosenberg, Ivor Gurney); the celebration of revolution (Hugh McDiarmid, D H Lawrence); the hungry thirties (Auden, C Day Lewis and Louis MacNiece); the second world war years (Alun Lewis, Hamish Henderson); new post-war voices (Alex Comfort, Roger McGough); the years of colonial liberation (Adrian Mitchell, James Berry); new voices of black writing (Grace Nichols, Jean Binta Breeze) and the women's movement (Liz Lochhead, Alison Fell); the Thatcher years (Sean O'Brien, Anne Stevenson) and modern times (Kathleen Jamie, Linda France). In all - 153 poems from 117 poets. Many of the poets will be well-known to poetry readers....a few will be forgotten voices. Red Sky At Night tells the story of the movement of an idea from the margins of British life to the center, and then out again to its disreputable edges. It tells the story of the engagement by British poets with contemporary political events. And it provides a sustained political footnote to the literary history of the last century.
Adrian Mitchell (1932-2008) was a prolific poet, playwright and children's writer. His poetry's simplicity, clarity, passion and humour show his allegiance to a vital, popular tradition embracing William Blake as well as the Border Ballads and the blues. His most nakedly political poems - about nuclear war, Vietnam, prisons and racism - became part of the folklore of the Left, sung and recited at demonstrations and mass rallies. After Allison & Busby stopped publishing poetry, he brought his work to Bloodaxe. Adrian Mitchell's Greatest Hits: His 40 Golden Greats (1991) was followed by Heart on the Left: Poems 1953-1984 (1997), Blue Coffee: Poems 1985-1996 (1996), All Shook Up: Poems 1997-2000 (2000), The Shadow Knows: Poems 2000-2004 (2004) and the posthumous Tell Me Lies: Poems 2005-2008 (2009), and then by his retrospective Come On Everybody: Poems 1953-2008 (2012). His collected poems for children, Umpteen Poems (Orchard Books), and Shapeshifters, his versions of Ovid's Metamorphoses, illustrated by Alan Lee (Frances Lincoln), were both published in 2009. Born in London in 1932, Adrian Mitchell worked as a journalist from 1955 to 1966, when he became a full-time writer. He gave many hundreds of readings throughout the world in theatres, colleges, pubs, prisons, streets, public transport, cellars, clubs and schools of all kinds. Many of his plays and stage adaptations were performed at the National Theatre as well as by the Royal Shakespeare Company and other theatre companies. In 2002, the socialist magazine Red Pepper dubbed him Shadow Poet Laureate and asked him to write regular republican poems for their columns. In a National Poetry Day poll in 2005, his poem 'Human Beings' was voted the poem that most people would like to see launched into space.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780907123491 |
| ISBN 10 | 090712349X |
| Title | Red Sky at Night |
| Author | Andy Croft |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Five Leaves Publications |
| Year published | 2003-05-08 |
| Number of pages | 280 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |