WHATEVER the result on Saturday, Jeremy Corbyn has already been confirmed as the poets’ choice for Labour leader. The man himself, like a latter-day John Betjeman, has even been writing his own poetry during campaign train rides.

I put together the anthology Poets for Corbyn as a sign of solidarity with this most radical of candidates. There was overwhelming enthusiasm for the book from almost all of the poets I approached. The mix of contributors hopefully reflects the broad-based support that Corbyn has been able to amass.

Politics and poetry have always been intertwined, indeed many popular poems are more political than some readers may realise — from Allen Ginsberg’s Howl to much of William Blake’s work. Political poems employ all manner of devices, although those expecting a paean to allotments to feature in our effort may be disappointed. However, we did include Corbyn’s famous beard and beloved bicycle on two of the alternative book covers.

Some of my favourite poems in Poets for Corbyn approach the theme at a slight tangent, without actually mentioning Corbyn. Helen Ivory’s Doll Hospital at the Top of the Hill is a heartfelt plea for a more caring approach to mental health:

Take her to the doll hospital;
restring the limbs with slipknots
fill the skull with lint
clean out the craze lines on her face
and paint on a 1940s smile.

Pascale Petit’s Scarlet Macaws encapsulates our enthusiasm for a new politics in its opening lines:

The scarlet macaws want their red back,
not puce or pink but rich rubescence.

In this final week of voting, five more poems have been added to the book, including Modern Ruin by this paper’s Well Versed editor Jody Porter. The Morning Star also published an Ian Pindar poem from the book. Spiders attacks the New Labour fallacy whereby copying the Tories is seen as the only route to power. Liz Kendall exemplifies this, but Andy Burnham and Yvette Cooper have also failed to distance themselves from such vacuous thinking during the weeks of campaigning.

There has been a decidedly mixed reaction to the book, as mirrored, I suppose, in the reaction to Corbyn’s candidacy itself. Poets for Corbyn has been reviewed or featured in the Guardian, Times, Sunday Times, Prospect, Camden New Journal, Spectator, Bookseller, Telegraph, Independent and elsewhere. While the right-wing press has often sought to lampoon the collection, other avenues have been kinder. Overall, it’s been a boon to inspire any discussion of poetry and socialism in the media, especially in tandem.

In addition to Poets for Corbyn, Attilla the Stockbroker and friends put on a delightfully raucous live evening of poetry in support of Corbyn in Camden. Kevin Higgins has also just put out a book entitled 21 Poems: 21 Reasons For Choosing Jeremy Corbyn. A number of US readers of my magazine, Berfrois, are now calling for a Poets for Sanders. There are surely plenty of stateside poets who would be willing to write in support of Bernie Sanders as an alternative to Hillary Clinton’s nomination as the Democratic candidate for president.

Corbyn’s cultural manifesto Arts for Everyone has more than repaid our faith in him as a politician concerned with the health of our arts scene. He has promised to create a Cabinet committee for the arts and creative industries. Support will be given to young writers — for instance, all potential future poets.

A Corbyn government will also recognise the BBC as a bastion of creativity in this country. Radio 4 remains a much-cherished outlet for poetry. In his 1891 essay, The Soul of Man under Socialism, Oscar Wilde wrote that “Disobedience, in the eyes of any one who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.” Corbyn has long been regarded as a rebellious MP within the Labour Party. If he is elected leader, let’s hope he continues to rebel against the prevailing forces of greed and warmongering.

Well Versed is edited by Jody Porter – wveditor@gmail.com
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