Poetry Corner: The Strangest Creature on Earth by Nâzım Hikmet

The Strangest Creature on Earth by Nâzım Hikmet, 1947

The Turkish communist poet Nazim Hikmet was noted to distinguish lyric poems, dedicated to love, from epic poems, dedicated to the action of the popular masses. Here we feature The Strangest Creature on Earth.

Review: The War On Cuba

Maxime Rigoulay recommends the new three part documentary series, The War On Cuba, by Belly of the Beast, which is a damning indictment of the US blockade on the socialist island in 2020.

Poetry Corner: Full Moon at Tierz – Before The Storming of Huesca by John Cornford

Full Moon at Tierz: Before The Storming of Huesca by John Cornford.

John Cornford from a relatively privileged families and attended Cambridge University. It was at Cambridge that he met and fell in love with Margot Heinemann and where they both joined the Communist Party. John’s mother, Frances Crofts Cornford, was a poet, and he himself was already writing poems at school.

After gaining a BA first-class honours in History, he became the first Englishman to enlist against Franco in the Spanish Civil War and was killed in battle on the Andujar and Cordoba Front on 27 or 28 December 1936.

Cornford wrote just a few poems in Spain, including A Letter from Aragon and the poem featured here Full Moon at Tierz: Before The Storming of Huesca.

Cable Street is a powerful example

Last weekend (3/4 October 2020), young communists conducted home to home leafleting on estates in Cable Street scene of a famous battle against fascism in 1936. The three day campaign included a street stall, giant projection of a film on the Battle and postering, with a banner display on the Sunday.

Events workers stage Day of Action across Britain

Yesterday (30 September 2020), events professionals around the country took part in various actions to expose the dire situation facing workers in this highly profitable industry. Graham Dakin writes about the conditions and challenges that have led them to this point.

Poetry Corner: Why I Choose Red by Hugh MacDiarmid

Why I Choose Red by Hugh MacDiarmid

Dr Christopher Murray Grieve, who wrote under the pen-name of Hugh Macdiarmid, was the greatest Scottish poet of the twentieth century. Best-known for what he called “Lallans”, a literary form of the Lowland Scots language that he developed, he also made use of English.

At different stages of his life he was a supporter of Scottish nationalism and communism. Famously, he stood for the Communist Party against Tory Prime Minister, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, in the Kinross & West Perthshire constituency in the 1964 general election, as part of an unsuccessful bid to get television time for the Party. His A Sprig of White Heather in the Future’s Lapel, written for former Communist MP Willie Gallacher on the occasion of the latter’s 80th birthday, is particularly famous among Britain’s Communists.

Here we feature Why I Choose Red, one of McDiarmid’s strongly political poems.