![\"\"](\"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/cce38c9ced11e434ea3309963bdf0ee5_L.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Too many people on the left still regard art and culture as peripheral to the class struggle. They fail to recognise that for millennia humans have found expression in music and dance and song and poetry. This expression has often taken the form of resistance to the alienation that capitalism has imbued in us.\u00a0\u00a0 The suppression of working class culture has been a weapon in the attempts to dehumanise our class. Yet we rise! <\/p>\n
In song and stories and theatre and poems. We continue to demonstrate our imagination and ability confront our class ridden, unjust world with beauty and compassion and determination. Far from peripheral, culture is integral to the awakening of consciousness and the struggle ahead.<\/p>\n
A Kist of Thistles, An anthology of radical poetry from contemporary Scotland, published by Culture Matters and edited by Jim Aitken is to be much welcomed in bringing Scottish voices to the fore in an accessible and dynamic form. Jim Aitken in his erudite introduction, contextualises the anthology in the tradition of radicalism through the ages and applauds the inclusion of poems in \u201call Scotland\u2019s languages \u2013 Gaelic Scots and English\u201d and its \u201cwonderful geographical spread.\u201d<\/p>\n
The anthology is in three sections; Home, Abroad and Elsewhere. It is Internationalist and it is angry. Most of all, however it is defiant and that\u2019s what I love. It does not shy away from the sins of Scotland\u2019s past, slavery and colonialism. Nor does it stint from the ongoing sectarianism and bigotry in our heartlands. It shows the perniciousness of poverty and drug dependency of 21st<\/sup> century Scotland but also champions solidarity and collective action.<\/p>\n If I had one criticism, it would be that there should be more love and laughter. Both revolutionary acts by our class in the face of a system that wants to see us bowed and broken. But that aside, it is a wonderful, timely collection that reminds us of our challenges and our power.<\/p>\n I thought to single out a number poems for special mention but there are too many that are too good. Anyway Jim\u2019s introduction is the place to read more detail before immersing in the poems themselves.<\/p>\n There is nothing fay or twee about this collection. It is itself a weapon in the class struggle. One I kept coming back to is, \u201cI saw a new world being assembled\u201d by Owen Gallacher. It is, I think the most appropriate taster for this feast for the soul and along with many others in this collection, places poetry at the heart of the struggle.<\/p>\n \nI Saw a new world being assembled 10th December 2020<\/p>\n _________<\/p>\n also see:-<\/p>\n Mary McGregor<\/strong><\/p>\n Michael Marra- A Tribute<\/a><\/p>\n Seamus Heaney \u2013 A Tribute<\/a><\/p>\n Jim Aitken<\/strong><\/p>\n Review of \u2018Quines\u2019 by Jim Aitken<\/a><\/p>\n Jim Aitken writes an appreciation of Tom Leonard<\/a><\/p>\n
\nin the tenements
\nthere were workers
\nwho built dreams for others
\nsingers who got drunk
\non rebel songs
\nfighters who fought
\nfor themselves
\nin the workplace
\nand lost every round
\nall in revolt
\nagainst an assembly line
\nOf masters
\nI saw a new world
\nbeing assembled
\nin a sweatshop
\nwhere dreamers
\nsingers and fighters
\nunfurled a trade union flag
\ntheir voices bolted
\nand welded into one\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n