Poems: Have a Go
Socialist Organiser1983 1983-02-03Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 12 →
Read from the scan by machine and not corrected: expect misread words, and now and then a caption or a line from a neighbouring story. For anything you quote, read the scan.
Scan page 12
CONGRATULATIONS on publishing the poem Ray Attwell in SO 116. I would like to see more poetry and suggest that other readers have a go.
Politics involves a bit more than strikes and the last GMC meeting, and our personal experience, under capitalism is political and should be communicated to our brothers and sisters. We have to try and change ourselves as people whilst struggling to overcome the system that produces the deformations that at times make us worse than animals.
For example, why have there been no articles on ecological movements in SO? Look at the Greens in the FRG.
Also, your coverage of CND had been extremely limited, almost tokenistic.
I really do think that some of the letters, such as that from Nottingham SO are very silly indeed. It is tremendous that these somen have done something.
Congratulate them on this, and then criticise them in a supportive and sisterly fashion, otherwise you just piss them off.
But coming back to Ray, I do think that his poem, which obviously reflects his experience on the - factory foor was too macho-male and northern working class centred. And what about the sexism of the title?
The poem glorifies conflict. Isn't all this "bar room bervying"" the kind of ching we should be trying to transcend not glorify? I'd be interested in the views of oxber SO readers.
WENDY WHEELWRIGHT Liverpool