Political lines (2006)

Book Review from the February 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

Christopher Hampton: Border Crossings. Katabasis £7.95.

We don’t often review poetry in the Socialist Standard, but here is a volume which merits a brief notice at least.

One poem speaks of ‘something other than this money system’ and of the need to ‘make resources work for the social wealth’. Another, in an echo of Brecht’s work (‘Who built Thebes of the seven gates?’), refers to ‘those / without whose skills no cities can be built’ – ordinary people, rather than gods or rulers. The Anonymous Makers repeats this point: that it’s nameless people who have built and grown things, not those who live off their backs. The invasion of Iraq is satirised: ‘We’ve hearts and minds to win and markets to invest’. But all this is spoilt by a poem supporting Allende’s Chile: ‘this workers’ President, this hated workers’ state’ (hated by the rulers of the US, that is).

Best to remember this volume though for its attempt to supply ‘words that cross the frontiers / of hope and failure’.

Paul Bennett