Red Rhymes for Valentines
NICK PELLING and HELEN MURPHY
Henry Normal, Janine Booth and Attila the Stockbroker are setting out on a tour of various Sussex seaside venues, bringing radical and left-inclined lines to the towns. The verso versifiers will be found at several cultural gathering spots along the coastline – including Shoreham, Seaford, Brighton and Arundel – but, in particular, at the Hot Tap Theatre in St Andrew’s Mews, Hastings on the evening of Valentine’s Day.
Each event will contain a plethora of subversive poetry with special guests on most nights. There will also be an anthology of the poetry available, featuring many diverse voices – both young and not so young – titled Class Lines and Red Rhymes. The book contains twenty five poems of change, absurdity and resistance. The proceeds from the book will go to a range of progressive causes.
STOCKBREAKING THE SYSTEM
Janine Booth is an extraordinary woman. Her sheer energy has made her many things. She is a marxist trade unionist, a socialist-feminist historian, a neurodivergent organiser and campaigner, a poet and a self-confessed ranting, angry middle-aged female human being.
At a slight angle to Janine is Attila the Stockbroker: an absolute legend of punk-poetry. He has been flinging poetic subversion at people for over forty years. He describes himself as “ranting rebel MC and Dean of the Socialist Surrealist University.” He is more than that. He is that increasingly rare thing today: someone shouting against the creeping moronicisation of our cultural life.
IMAGINE A NEW NORMAL
By slight contrast, Henry Normal is not only a poet but something of a comedy genius. Indeed, his poems, whilst being obviously calls for change, do so with a wit that lifts his work far above mere political rhetoric or pompous posturing. As Henry says, “touring with Attila and Janine is always fun but also energising.”
But there is obviously a serious side to all this. Times are fast lurching to the right. Those of us who want something different need to speak to each other. Or as Henry puts it, “thought is the mother of the deed, so to achieve a just and more equal society we need to examine where we are and imagine where we could be.” That is definitely a thought.
Details of the tour can be found at janinebooth.com
TRUMP ‘DERANGEMENT’ SYNDROME
Henry Normal
I can’t come in today
I need to convalesce
I’m sick – so the doctors say
I’ve got TDS
Triggered by Trump on TV
And his nonsense in the press
I’ve OD’d on his absurdity
It’s a problem to process
The Diagnosis is – I hate him
Something I confess
And my need to berate him
Has become an excess
It’s not a Derangement
A Distaste – at a guess
More Disgust than Disorder
Disrespect at best
The D could stand for Dislike
Disdain or Distress
He and It – may last full term
Hopefully less
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