Bring the Rising Home! - Softcover

Jenkins, Mike

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1907464220 ISBN 13: 9781907464225

Publisher: Manifesto Press, 2017

Synopsis

In May 1831, miners and others took to the streets of Merthyr Tydfil, protesting against wage cuts and unemployment generally. The protest spread and soon the whole area was in rebellion the red flag was flown as a symbol of workers' revolt for the first time. The social and economic conditions which sparked the Merthyr Rising are never far from Mike Jenkins's poetic imagination, but there are also poems here about drunks, jailbirds, footballers, a mining disaster, and Northern Ireland. Weaving through both poems and images are themes of individual isolation and alienation, and the urgent need for collective action to change the conditions of working people. Mike Jenkins's vivid, lyrical poems are accompanied by full colour paintings by the Welsh socialist painter Gustavius Payne, whose bold, striking, and deeply sympathetic paintings complement the poems perfectly. The message is clear: isolated, people are powerless, but together they are strong. They need to organise into trade unions, join a socialist party and challenge the ruling class. Here is a poetic and painterly union of two socialist Welsh artists who, in their own brilliant, artistic way, are bringing the Rising home.

About this title

About the Author

Mike Jenkins is a retired teacher of English at comprehensive schools. He lives in Merthyr Tydfil, has co-edited Red Poets for 23 years and has blogged weekly on his website www.mikejenkins.net since 2009. He runs creative writing workshops with children and adults and organises regular poetry events in Merthyr and elsewhere in South Wales. He is winner of the 1998 Wales Book of the Year for a book of short stories, Wanting to Belong (Seren); his latest book of poetry is in Merthyr vernacular Sofa Surfin (Carreg Gwalch); and he was shortlisted for the Bread and Roses Poetry Award 2017.

Edition details

• Publisher: Manifesto Press
• Publication date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1907464220
• ISBN 13: 9781907464225
• Binding: Paperback
• Illustrator: Payne Gustavius
• Number of pages: 56
• Editor: Quille Mike