Poetry Corner: VE Day 75 – Will V-Day Be Me-Day Too?
As part of the celebrations around the 75th Anniversary of Victory in Europe Day, Challenge’s Poetry Corner will be featuring a selection of poems from across the world, inspired by the war and its events.
Here we feature Will V-Day Be Me-Day Too? written by Langston Hughes. The poem is written from the perspective of a black US serviceman. It is a profound comment on the profound and structural racism on which the USA is and was based and the sad fact that black servicemen were abroad fighting to defeat the same racist and oppressive ideologies they were forced to endure at home.
Poetry Corner: VE Day 75 – Wait for Me
As part of the celebrations around the 75th Anniversary of Victory in Europe Day, Challenge’s Poetry Corner will be featuring a selection of poems from across the world, inspired by the war and its events.
Here we feature Wait for Me written in 1941 by Konstantin Simonov. The poem is written from the perspective of a Soviet soldier heading to the front, addressing their spouse or partner. It became a favourite of Soviet servicemen and women at the time and continues to be popular in Russia today.
We must continue fighting the good fight
Nelson Mandela once said, “I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part of being optimistic is keeping one’s head pointed toward the sun, one’s feet moving forward. There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not […]
ONES TO WATCH: White Flowers
Hailing from Preston and operating out of an abandoned textile mill; the two piece, made up of Katie Drew and Joey Cobb, blend together a sound reminiscent of The KVB and Cocteau Twins. Ethereal and yet somehow near impossible to pin down, the band itself describes its work as Gothic Dreampop. ‘Night Drive’ draws you […]
Class divide at the heart of our education
I’m sure everyone reading this is aware of the deep class divisions within the British educational system. The disparities could not be more glaringly obvious. Children of rich bankers go off to Eton, while the heating of the local comp still hasn’t been fixed. Fairly common knowledge. While the existence of public schools such as […]
The importance of ventilators should not be questioned
It is rare for us to pay any notice to what is published in the Daily Mail. However, their article titled “Is this proof ‘life-saving’ ventilators are actually deathtraps?” is so devoid of science, and so potentially dangerous, that it must be responded to. The central premise of the article is that invasive ventilation (i.e. having […]
Reclaim Pride!
We’ve all been to Gay Pride at some point. Whether you marched behind the banners, covered your face with glitter or danced the night away surrounded by drag queens, there’s a special place for gay pride in the hearts of the LGBT community across the UK. However, there’s something very wrong .
Pride, sadly, is a shadow of its former self. What once started as a protest riot on the streets of New York against police harassment has become little more than a street party – decades of moderate politics, commercialisation and corporate sponsorship has turned protest signs into glossy adverts; angry slogans transformed into 2-for-1 offers at Nandos if you wear a rainbow badge.
Is English cricket doomed to remain elite forever?
Independent schools are thankfully not things that prey excessively on my mind. Having received a state education and living in an area devoid entirely of private education, my daily life was never concerned with them or their influence until I left for university. I’d managed, in fact, to stay proudly ignorant for the majority of […]
The Strokes and Their Synthpop Belter With Soft Vocals ‘The New Abnormal’
This new work from The Strokes is a breath of fresh air in the times of the Covid 19. ‘The New Abnormal’ is their first album since ‘Comedown Machine’ which was released seven years ago and it’s ten times better in my view. This being said it’s a polar opposite from their first album ‘Is […]
Bridging the divide: the cosmos and the two cultures
From the Babylonians to the Greeks to the Mayans, the practises of science and literature existed in some form or another at the centre of every ancient civilisation. They represented to them what they continue to do to us today: the most fundamental desire of our species to know the world around us, and to share that knowledge with others. Tens of thousands of years came and went while spending little time at all drawing distinction between these disciplines – ones today we perceive as being repellent strangers to one another – as often they were one single entity. Ancient aborigine civilisations considered the stars the campfires of passed spirits, spawning many a story that were undoubtedly shared around more terrestrial campfires, from generation to generation, through spoken word rather than ink and parchment.
Somewhere down the line, between then and now, the entity broke in two.
