THE BARGING BUDDHI AND OTHER POEMS – SUNITA THIND – REVIEW

Posted on August 12, 2020 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged Bhangra, Black Pear Press, colonialism, colourism, cultural appropriation, family, featured, feminism, Henna, India, marital rape, nature, ovarian cancer, patriarchy, poetry, Punjabi, review, sisterhood, Sunita Thind, The Barging Buddhi and Other Poems, white supremacy.

By Carmina Masoliver

Content warning: brief references to sexual assault

The Barging Buddhi and Other Poems takes us on a journey from human expectations that are created within a set culture, to more cosmic climbs, from which we are brought back to earth with the fragility of life, to then be connected to a wider sense of nature. Sunita Thind’s poetry is rich, sensual and visual. Although her numerous questions throughout the collection hint at self-doubt and uncertainty, she shows a strong sense of voice that is not easily contained, like the ‘pyrotechnical parrots’ she describes, how humans ‘clip their wings to capture the fury of their rainbow constellations / humans devouring them like black holes / sequestered in monster iron cages.’ The collection is strongest when assertive, using imperatives: ‘delete the tears’, ‘stain me’, maroon me.’

THIS ELECTION IS THE FIGHT OF OUR LIVES – HERE’S HOW WE CAN WIN IT

Posted on November 15, 2019 by Norwich Radical in Student and tagged art, Brexit, campaigning, doorknocking, environment, family, fascism, featured, general election, general election 2019, green new deal, higher education, inequality, jeremy corbyn, Labour, marketisation, memes, momentum, music, NUS, political art, politics, public services, register to vote, social media, student debt, students, unions, universities, vote, young people.

By Bradley Allsop

The world is on the brink. A shattered environment, gargantuan inequality, a burgeoning mental health crisis, fascism openly spreading across Europe, public services at breaking point… but also the possibility of more radical and progressive change than we’ve seen in decades. Higher education specifically also faces two radically different paths ahead of it: continued marketisation, eroding academic integrity, burdening a generation with enormous debt, crushing academics under enormous workloads, increasingly insecure employment and workplace stress – or publicly funded higher education that opens up space to imagine and create a different sort of campus.

TRANSPARENT REFORM

Posted on July 28, 2019 by Norwich Radical in Perspectives and tagged #VisitAPrison, Bob Neill, crime, ethics, family, FAMM, featured, felony, jail, Julie Stewart, justice, law, life sentence, Nelson Mandela, prison, prisoner, Prisoner Policy Network, PRT, reform, support, transparency, walls.

by David Breakspear

It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.
N. Mandela

A message I have carried whilst campaigning for reforms in our prison system has been one of making the walls of justice invisible. The walls that ensconce societies; mums, dads, sons, daughters, husbands, wives, other family members and loved ones and/or friends.

As someone that became, somewhat, institutionalised to the safety and comfort of prison, I saw those walls as keeping people out. I also saw this as a good thing. How ironic then, that here I am now, writing an article promoting transparency to those very same walls that were my protectors.Continue Reading

A CHRISTMAS BREXIT TALE, PART V

Posted on January 9, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged Brexit, email, England. cake, family, featured, fiction, job, Polish, politics, prime minister, school, serialised, series, shopping, story, storytelling, teacher, uk, work.

by Hannah Rose

(Part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4)

Outside Selfridges on Oxford street at 5am Boxing Day morning, a queue had already formed. The sales could not start soon enough for some shoppers. At the same time, Aleksander’s father was waking his son up. He handed him a pile of thermal underwear and a hard hat and told him to get ready so they could go and ‘explore’ the site.

“Can I really see where you are working, dad!?”

“Of course, but you will have to stay in the cabin for a while as I have some large girders to move with the crane. If you stay in there you can watch out of the window. Bring your tablet and learn some English words while you wait, ok?”

“Ok dad.”Continue Reading

A CHRISTMAS BREXIT TALE, PART IV

Posted on January 5, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged Brexit, email, England. cake, family, featured, fiction, job, Polish, politics, prime minister, school, serialised, series, shopping, story, storytelling, teacher, uk, work.

by Hannah Rose

Later that night after Aleksander and his father had eaten too much food and watched a few films, and when Aleksander was asleep on the sofa, his father switched on the tablet and opened his emails. One was from his boss, the ops manager, and had an attachment. Do I need to read this now? He thought. Better to know what that tool has to say now, than worry about it all night. The email read:Continue Reading

A CHRISTMAS BREXIT TALE, PART III

Posted on January 3, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged Brexit, England. cake, family, featured, fiction, job, Polish, politics, prime minister, school, serialised, series, shopping, story, storytelling, teacher, uk, work.

by Hannah Rose

“What do you mean you sacked my team?” Aleksander’s father said to his boss, the operations manager late on Christmas Eve when he finally called him back. “It’s the day before Christmas and we were already behind schedule.”

“Look, mate,” the ops manager said. “the pound has taken a nosedive since Brexit, and your lot were asking for double their hourly rate, and expecting a Christmas bonus.”

“ ‘Your lot’” Aleksander’s father chastised.

The ops manager didn’t hear him.

“I’ve got the Sheikh of Abu Dhabi on my back threatening to pull the whole thing and leave a bunch of half built hotels in Battersea and a whole company of British workers made redundant if I don’t balance the books and get this thing sorted. I did you a favour by keeping you on. I had to let them go and get things level again. Otherwise there might have been a mutiny—sabotage—and how would that look for you, eh?”

‘You did me a favour’ Aleksander’s father silently repeated, bitterly.

“And what about my lot who have no money to send home this month?” He asked.

“Look, mate, we have to look after our own in this post Brexit world of ours. If you get the main building looking relatively ship shape by January 1st and the Sheikh is happy then I will consider bringing the Poles back for phase 2 of the project.”

“But why at Christmas?!” Aleksander’s father was desperate.

“Well it isn’t Christmas for the bloody Sheikh, is it?—he’s an Arab!” Continue Reading

A CHRISTMAS BREXIT TALE, PART II

Posted on January 1, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged Brexit, England. cake, family, featured, fiction, job, Polish, politics, prime minister, school, serialised, series, shopping, story, storytelling, teacher, uk, work.

by Hannah Rose

The PM placed the Impact Assessment on Effects on Building Site Managers carefully down in front of her, crossed her arms and looked to her cabinet. “This Christmas,” she said, “you all have homework to do.” I’d like you to read this Impact Assessment, inside out, and all the others, by the 1st January 2018.”

“Every single one ma’am?” The minister for education said, timidly.

“Every single one,” She replied. “And don’t call me ma’am. I’m not the queen—or Margaret Thatcher, God rest her soul.”Continue Reading

A CHRISTMAS BREXIT TALE, PART I

Posted on December 30, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Arts, Inter|national and tagged Brexit, England. cake, family, featured, fiction, Polish, politics, prime minister, school, serialised, series, shopping, story, storytelling, teacher, uk.

by Hannah Rose

Christmas in England this year made a festive looking smokescreen for the dirtiest of politics. Whilst civilians were stripping the shelves of Lidl of pickles, the PM and her cabinet were negotiating terms for exiting Europe for good—no one would see them slink away through the back door. In mid December the Brexit Impact Assessments, which had taken up most of civil service’s working week throughout the year, sat in a sagging pile on the Cabinet’s round table, resembling the Christmas cake which no one actually likes but must stay there reminding everyone of the hard effort some relative put in to making it. “Who has actually read these?” the PM asks. Silence, except for the shuffle of feet. She picks up the top file between her forefinger and thumb and waves it at the men sitting around her. “Has anyone read” –she pauses to peer at the title—“’Effects on Self-employed Building Site Managers’?” The Defence Secretary coughs and offers a response.

“That isn’t my area ma’am.”

“Esteemed colleagues,” the PM says to her cabinet, not unkindly. “Brexit is everyone’s area.”Continue Reading

“HI, HOW ARE YOU?”

Posted on September 12, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged alcohol, anxiety, clubbing, companion, compassion, conflict, creative writing, death, depression, dog, family, guardian, guilt, homeless, homelessness, Kev Walker, kitbag, maybe, mental health, night out, pain, poem, poetry, pride, PTSD, rough sleepers, saturday night out, solider, special brew, substance misuse, support, tramp, veteran, war, words, writing.

by Kev Walker

Content warning: mentions substance misuse, mental health, homelessness, conflict

It’s all bling and totter, down the lights of the highstreet, drunk by the train journey there
Cackles and shouts, tales of shagging and swearing, cosmetics squeeze out the air
Bravado and vanity, beer and wine, heading for the first open club
Boys strut with their chests out, showing a leg, only thoughts are of getting a rub.

He’s crouched in the corner, a-top a damp box, wrapped in a half soaking doss-bag
A dog by his side, as companion and protector, a mucker to share a sparse nose-bag
He shakes with the cold, but also the comedown the cider has long since left him
A blot-out, a release, from the pain in his mind and the mess he now finds himself in.Continue Reading

JOAN LEE: THE MARVELOUS MUSE

Posted on July 11, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged artist, arts, comic books, comics, creator, daughter, DC, death, family, husband, Jack Kirby, Joan Clayton Boocock, Marvel, marvel universe, memory, Newcastle, obituary, purple prose, relationship, RIP, Spider-Man, Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, superhero, support, Uatu the Watcher, wife.

by Richard Worth

The story goes that Stan Lee was dragging his feet on Marvel’s latest bid to catch up with the Distinguished Competition. He was becoming bored with the monster-matinée mags he made with Kirby and uninspired by the sci-fi parables he produced with Ditko and now his bosses had tasked him with making a book to rival DC’s newest hit, Justice League.

Stan wasn’t one for superheroes. They were too perfect, too unflawed, and too unfit for the hyper-dramatised, purple prose that was Stan’s hallmark. He moped and complained about his artistic integrity, as writers are wont to do, boring all around him until his perpetually patient wife finally told him to get on with it. Continue Reading

family

THE BARGING BUDDHI AND OTHER POEMS – SUNITA THIND – REVIEW

By Carmina Masoliver

TRANSPARENT REFORM

A CHRISTMAS BREXIT TALE, PART V

A CHRISTMAS BREXIT TALE, PART IV

A CHRISTMAS BREXIT TALE, PART III

A CHRISTMAS BREXIT TALE, PART II

A CHRISTMAS BREXIT TALE, PART I

“HI, HOW ARE YOU?”

JOAN LEE: THE MARVELOUS MUSE

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