The Robin Hood Book

This is a big, important book, coming at a time when the national inclination is to boo George Osborne, to his great astonishment, at the Paralympic Games. Its rallying point is the campaign for a Robin Hood, or Tobin tax on financial transactions, and follows last year’s radical anthology, Emergency Verse. But, as editor Alan Morrison is happy to point out, inevitably its sweep is far wider than that, prompted by a “wide range of political convictions: socialists, communists, anti-capitalists, anarchists, Greens”, and its underlying ethic being defence of the welfare state. Interestingly, within its pages is also a polemic about the state of poetry in Britain today, which takes in last year’s big bust-up at the Poetry Society, and the Poetry Book Society’s acceptance of sponsorship from a hedge fund.

The Robin Hood Book, unlike a number of collections of poetry, makes you feel included, not excluded. It is also the first time I’ve come across the glorious term “lumpenpoetariat”. Where do we sign? Greg Freeman, Write Out Loud

Provoking, entertaining, moving and heartening, it is an extraordinarily rich selection of funny, angry, polemical, satirical, sad and wise poetry …a huge and hugely important book… 
Andy Croft, Morning Star

Here is a handbook for everyone who wants to make the case against the Coalition. I can’t recommend it highly enough…
Disability Arts Online