John Green talks to Andy Croft about the achievements of Smokestack Books, in an article from the Morning Star

Poetry is the most democratic form of literary expression — it only takes a pencil, a scrap of paper and/or a voice to create a poem of a few lines or stanzas. It won’t necessarily be good poetry but that is another issue. Unfortunately, many people in Britain still today dismiss and ignore poetry. As socialist poet Adrian Mitchell memorably encapsulated it: “Most people ignore most poetry because most poetry ignores most people.”

Smokestack Books has spent two intensive decades trying to disprove this assertion. Its models were Curbstone Press based in the US and the French Le Temps des Cerises, publishers of “la poesie d’utilite publique” — poetry in the public interest. It has been emitting a steady stream of progressive poetry into the rarified atmosphere of Britain’s literary world since 2004, when poet and former Morning Star poetry editor Andy Croft set it up. Tragically, Smokestack’s poetic furnaces will, at the end of this year, be extinguished, even though the back-list will still be available to order.

I asked Croft why he decided to establish Smokestack Books in the first place.

“I wanted to publish poets far from the centres of cultural authority,” he says, “especially oppositional, dissident, unfashionable and radical poets. Smokestack has now published 237 titles and sold over 65,000, including volumes by John Berger, Michael Rosen, Sylvia Pankhurst, Vernon Scannell, Linda France and Kate Fox. I also envisaged Smokestack as a protest at the terminal dullness of so much of the contemporary UK poetry scene, its self-importance, excitability, lack of seriousness and self-imposed isolation from the rest of society.”

One of Smokestack’s special contributions was that it gave a platform not just to British poets, but brought readers into contact with a whole number of leading foreign poets not easily encountered elsewhere, several in bilingual editions, including Victor Jara, Louis Aragon, Bertolt Brecht, Nikola Vaptsarov, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Yiannis Ritsos, Olga Berggolts, Francis Combes, Volker Braun, Gustavo Pereira, Alexandr Tvardovsky and anthologies of poetry from Cuba, Greece, Kurdistan, France, Russia, Algeria and Palestine.

Despite its achievements, Croft remains pessimistic about the role of poetry in the present political and economic climate.

“During the last two decades,” he says, “large sections of British economic life have been moved out of common ownership into private hands, rationed by price or simply closed down. The democratic process is blocked by inequality, authoritarianism, deceit and a narrow ideological consensus. British cultural life is blocked by the values of big business and show business. The result is an atomised, unwelcoming and unfriendly poetry scene whose inaccessibility is hardly disguised by ritual declarations about diversity and inclusion. Conversations about poetry have been replaced by conversations about poets, discussions of tradition by accusations of plagiarism, and the language of literary criticism by the hyperbolic language of press-releases promoting corporate prizes and celebrity book-festivals.”

The result, for Croft, is that people are wary of contemporary poetry, which too often seems remote and invariably associated with resentful feelings of elitism. It was the great Marxist literary critic Raymond Williams who pointed out that the use of the word “intellectual” in English has historically been associated with an aloof elite. While it would be hard to write a history of, say, France or Russia without attending to the positive role of the literary intelligentsia, their dynamic and changing relationship to power and to society, here in Britain. It would be much easier to write a history of anti-intellectual resentments.

“At a time of deepening structural inequalities in British life,” he asserts, “poets are hidden behind university walls, competing for prizes and commissions, protected by agents, copyright lawyers and exaggerated claims for the importance of poetry. According to the Guardian, during the Covid pandemic ‘almost everyone’ found themselves ‘turning to poetry.’

“The gate-keepers who control access to the world of poetry — the broadsheets, the Arts Council, the BBC, book-festivals, prize-giving foundations, the Poetry Society — also isolate it from the world and inoculate it against controversy.”

As Croft explains: “It always felt as though Smokestack titles were published in silence, in secret, samizdat. After 20 years our titles still struggled to make themselves heard above the victory march of the Next Big Thing. No Smokestack title was ever reviewed in the Guardian. Only three titles were reviewed in Poetry Review. Only one was ever featured on BBC’s The Verb. It always felt as though no-one was listening.”

Many Smokestack titles were intended as specific interventions, contributions to the public conversation around particular issues — the rise of neofascism and anti-semitism in Europe, Brexit, the Greek economic crisis, femicide, the refugee crisis, Covid, climate emergency, the wars in Iraq, Ukraine and Gaza. Others were published to mark historical anniversaries — the Great War, Dada, 1917, the Spanish civil war, 1945, the Nakba, the Pinochet coup, the UCS work-in, the miners’ strike.

For instance, Atef Alshaer and Alan Morrison were joint editors of Out of Gaza: New Palestinian Poetry, published only three months after the Israeli invasion of Gaza, to raise money for the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Ilhan Comak’s Separated from the Sun was published to raise public awareness about its author, who has been in a Turkish prison since 1994 for the crime of Kurdish “separatism.”

Despite everything, Smokestack has been a success story on several levels, putting into print poets who might otherwise not have been published, as well as introducing to British readers those poets from other countries whose work was hitherto unavailable in English. It will remain as a marker of resistance to both the elite literary canon and the poetry Establishment as well as a vital historical witness to poetry as an expression of working people’s lives.

There will be a celebration of Smokestack’s publishing achievement at The Cockpit Theatre on December 8 at the Cockpit Theatre, Gateforth Street, London NW8 8EH - see flyer above. Everyone is welcome.

Around 60 people gathered last Saturday in Barnsley for the Communist Party’s first-ever conference on culture. Called ‘Class and Culture’, the conference was held in the inspiring surroundings of the NUM headquarters in Barnsley, and was chaired by Ron Brown, co-convenor of the Party’s Culture Commission.

The aim of the event was to bring together Party members, supporters, cultural activists and performers, to look at ways in which the cultural struggle could be ramped up and integrated more closely with the labour movement's economic and political struggles for a better world.

Ruth Styles, Chair of the Communist Party, opened the event by sketching out  some key problems in the struggle for cultural democracy.

Firstly, problems around the access of working-class people to cultural experiences of all kinds, because of cost, location and the increasing lack of cultural education in schools.

Secondly, the problems faced by people from working-class backgrounds within the cultural industries, in terms of getting jobs in the industry, precarious work, lack of career progression, and unfair discrimination.

Thirdly, the grossly inadequate and unfair cultural representation of working-class lives, histories, values and experiences, eg on TV and film, in museums and galleries, and in the arts generally.

A cultural interlude followed in the form of a prosepoem from the Culture Matters co-operative, on the subject of cultural democracy. Culture Matters had also set up an exhibition of politically progressive visual art and poetry for conference participants.

A panel of speakers then elaborated on some aspects of the problems outlined by Ruth Styles. John Pateman spoke about the history of public libraries and campaigns to keep them as free, open spaces for community use, where working people can access various forms of culture.

Kevin McCann spoke eloquently from experience about the liberating power of writing, reading and hearing poetry performed in community settings.

Daisy-Mae Stewart bemoaned the effects of cuts to youth services on cultural activities, and she did this not only through an address to the conference but also by a short two-person play she had written specially, and which was performed to the delight of the audience.

Ed Harlow, a music teacher from the National Education Union, spoke about the evidence showing how important cultural skills are for succeeding at school in all subjects. He explained how cultural education of all kinds has been savagely cut from the school curriculum over the last few years of Tory government, and introduced the forthcoming NEU campaign to restore arts education in schools.

Breakout sessions then considered how to embed projects and campaigns into other work in the Party, and how to go about building cultural democracy in practice. Recommendations included including appointing officers to take forward cultural activities and campaigns within trade unions, Trades Councils and party branches; and supporting the Fair Play Cabaret initiative by Equity.

After lunch, the afternoon session chaired by Ben Lunn focused on integrating culture with struggles for change. It started with a performance by a local brass band, and then Heather Wood and Betty Cook talked about the 1984 Miners’ Strike, and how important both cultural production and consumption were in accompanying and sustaining that struggle.

The musician Joe Solo joined the session with some political songs, and then a second round of discussions gave participants the chance for discussion on the value of culture as a force for change. More recommendations for action were generated, such as supporting progressive theatre companies and using film shows to promote cultural democracy, particularly in rural areas.

Ruth Styles closed the conference by urging participants to ensure that the booklet ‘Class and Culture’ was read and discussed widely in local branches. She suggested that some form of cultural activity was planned locally by everyone, as a practical step forward. Ruth also asked the Culture Commission to consider all the recommendations and produce a report and guide to action, for members but also the wider labour movement.

The CPB ebooklet of ‘Class and Culture’ can be downloaded below.

In the summer of 2024, Culture Matters put out a call for poetry and artwork related to Donald Trump and Trumpism. Taking the title from WB Yeats’ ‘Second Coming’, the resulting anthology explores the havoc that a second term would unleash on the US and the wider world. With unjust policies, the demonisation of migrants and people of colour, and attacking anyone that tries to hold his feet to the fire, Trump and Trumpism are mistakes that the US cannot afford to make a second time round.

Co-editors Merryn Williams and Rip Bulkeley and others at Culture Matters have fought hard to make this anthology socially useful, an example of Shelley’s dictum that ‘poets are the legislators of the world’. We hope that readers will find laughter in what are some dark times, and that they will know that our solidarity extends over borders.

The contributors to What Rough Beast go for the jugular – the Mexican wall, white supremacism, replacement theory, racism, COVID, the assault on the Capitol, neo-fascism, and the appalling circus of stupidity, ignorance, narcissism, lies and gibberish that Trump and Trumpism spew out.

What Rough Beast is a rich and varied collection, serious and silly, horrified and horrifying, of understatements and exaggerations, parodies and rants, slapstick and analysis of the moral and intellectual crisis in US politics from which Trumpism draws its power.
- Andy Croft, poet and publisher

What Rough Beast is a collective expression of protest. It is a rejection of Trump and the smug inertia that allowed him to slither into our dimension in the first place. The poems, by turns playful, impassioned, and incendiary, show a determination to resist the necrotised supremacy of Trump, Trumpism, and the seemingly unkillable zombie capitalism he represents. With energy and inventiveness, the poems in What Rough Beast keep on swinging, reminding us that although said beast assumes distorted and outlandish proportions, his is a fallible, human power that can and must be overcome.
- Fran Lock

The book is available here as a downloadable pdf, and printed copies can also be purchased. It is £10 to UK addresses, E15 to Europe and $20 to US and worldwide addresses. All prices include p. and p. Please use this button:

The following four poems are taken from the What Rough Beast anthology of poems about Trump and Trumpism, available to download here. Image above: Rise Up My Pretties, by Martin Gollan, who also made the drawings below.

Trumpet

So bashed from its last fall I can’t remove
the mouthpiece. A mouthpiece I got from a man
on the demo when mine fell out on the Tube.

I don’t need it back he said. We were ‘Trumpets
Against Trump’ and I had not been practising
so was all too easily able to get the discordant

eponymous noise the contingent was aiming for
long after some got fed up and started playing
actual music. I marched head high, proud

with my little clip-on lyre holding the notes
down Regent Street, where we were joined
by Drag Queens against Trump and Soho Radio Allstars.

By Trafalgar Square I was foot and mouth sore.
The sun shone and an orange baby floated above.

Anna Robinson
London, England

 
[no title]

storming the Capitol for a Facebook-tagged selfie
live-streaming on Insta in a bison-horned helmet
Rambos in the Senate cosplay with their zip cuffs

when in insurrection please do not touch the statues
where Donald J. Trump has been jumping the shark
the flayed skin of democracy as a casual jacket

a mortal last stand in the crush at the Speaker’s Lobby
a star-spangled thread count in Brian Sicknick’s lifeblood
the tear-gas hangs heavy with airborne diseases

Clay Thistleton
New South Wales
Australia
 
The Cursing

May your water be the spit of Mexicans.
May cheeseburgers give you cramps.
May you have diarrhoea on your gold-plated toilet seat.
May you have an obstruction every time you abuse power.
May your balls be forever in the sand dunes.
May your creosote tan give you zits.
May there be wind at your back to blow your comb over.
May you get whiplash every time you utter fake news.
May your Real Estate be taken from you to house immigrant families.
May your wealth pay towards slavery reparation.
May you take the knee to women and them take it in turn to punch you.
May transgender people queue up then to kick you.
May you become disabled and have the gait.
May every dying bumblebee sting you.
May you disappear like flu.
May you wear a soundproof mask.
May your champagne taste of Clorox.
May your small thumbs fall off, so you cannot Tweet.
May you be a dummy in Minnesota Police Training for nine minutes.
May you be interned with only Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-Un for company,
and may even they snub you.

Anita Gracey
Belfast, Ireland

Humpty-Trumpty 

 

In the summer of 2024, Culture Matters put out a call for poetry and artwork related to Donald Trump and Trumpism. Taking the title from WB Yeats’ ‘Second Coming’, the resulting anthology explores the havoc that a second term would unleash on the US and the wider world. With unjust policies, the demonisation of migrants and people of colour, and attacking anyone that tries to hold his feet to the fire, Trump and Trumpism are mistakes that the US cannot afford to make a second time round.

Co-editors Merryn Williams and Rip Bulkeley and others at Culture Matters have fought hard to make this anthology socially useful, an example of Shelley’s dictum that ‘poets are the legislators of the world’. We hope that readers will find laughter in what are some dark times, and that they will know that our solidarity extends over borders.

The contributors to What Rough Beast go for the jugular – the Mexican wall, white supremacism, replacement theory, racism, COVID, the assault on the Capitol, neo-fascism, and the appalling circus of stupidity, ignorance, narcissism, lies and gibberish that Trump and Trumpism spew out.

What Rough Beast is a rich and varied collection, serious and silly, horrified and horrifying, of understatements and exaggerations, parodies and rants, slapstick and analysis of the moral and intellectual crisis in US politics from which Trumpism draws its power.
- Andy Croft, poet and publisher

What Rough Beast is a collective expression of protest. It is a rejection of Trump and the smug inertia that allowed him to slither into our dimension in the first place. The poems, by turns playful, impassioned, and incendiary, show a determination to resist the necrotised supremacy of Trump, Trumpism, and the seemingly unkillable zombie capitalism he represents. With energy and inventiveness, the poems in What Rough Beast keep on swinging, reminding us that although said beast assumes distorted and outlandish proportions, his is a fallible, human power that can and must be overcome.
- Fran Lock

The book is available below as a downloadable pdf. If you like it, please make a donation. A printed version will be available shortly.

Shooting to Kill, the second poetry collection by ex-con poet Nick Moss following the Koestler Award-winning poems of Swear Down (Smokestack Books, 2021), is a fine example of poetry as resistance. The book confronts state violence and terrorism in the UK, and in the Middle East, and gives vital voice to their victims. Poems depicting the gritty reality of domestic prison life are juxtaposed with devastatingly powerful poems of horrified document on the ongoing carnage in the carpet-bombed open prison that is the Gaza Strip (or what's left of it).

The more polemical poems are interspersed with excerpts from speeches and articles, the platitudes and icy rhetoric of politicians, that jostle for dominance of traumatic narrative. Shooting to Kill is political poetry at its most relevant, powerful and uncompromising.

Shooting to Kill, Poems by Nick Moss, ISBN9781912710713, £12, available here.

This is a trilogy of republished books by 2023 T. S. Eliot Prize-shortlisted poet Fran Lock, containing Muses and Bruises, Ruses and Fuses, and Raptures and Captures. With its new Introduction and refreshed introductions to all the books, it is an important retrospective collection by one of our most original poets, a rich, eloquent, dense and raging book that is vulnerable, fierce and wise.

Muses & Bruises discovers the classical goddesses of art and knowledge disguised as Travellers in contemporary Britain. It brilliantly juxtaposes the lives of the nine Muses of Greek mythology, with a vivid, grotesque imagining of a grimy, glittery place called Rag Town, and the working-class girls who inhabit it. The poems revel in richness and strangeness, showing the marginal places and unlikely ways where young working-class women find beauty and meaning.

Ruses & Fuses recovers the English Dissenting tradition and connects their struggles with our own – Nedd Ludd, John Lilburne, the Diggers, the Pendle Witches, Fergus O'Connor, the Cable Street marchers, the Cambridge spies, the Diggers, the Dale Farm Travellers and William Morris. She writes of witches, working-class suffragettes, and the unsung, unlovable labours of working-class women. Her poetry conflates historical detail and present crisis to highlight both the continuation of violence against women, and the continuum of solidarity and sisterhood that exists despite this abuse.

Raptures & Captures is an extraordinary and original collection, following on from Muses and Bruises and Ruses and Fuses. It is inspired by Catholic-Communist liberation theology and a fascination with the continuing relevance of the lives of the saints to a radical, liberating politics for us, here and now.

/ Spectres // Defectors /// No Respecters, a Poetry Omnibus by Fran Lock, IBN 9781912710768, £12, available here.

The anthology is a selection of poems submitted for the sixth Bread and Roses Poetry Award 2024. It includes the five winners of the Award and the poems cover a variety of themes relevant to working-class life, experience, history and culture. What unites them is an often playful, yet deeply considered engagement with language, and a fresh focus on the particularities of working-class life. Above all else, the poems are bound together by a generous expression of solidarity with the most vulnerable amongst us.

The Role of the Artist under Late Capitalism: the Bread and Roses Poetry Award Anthology 2024, ISBN: 9781912710722, £10, available here.