A collection of poems in support of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn proved a soaraway sales success at the recent Labour party conference - and has drawn plenty of media interest, too. 

Sky News featured a reading of antholoy editor Merryn Williams's poem during its coverage of Labour's conference in Liverpool, while the Daily Telegraph's political sketch writer Michel Deacon reported on the anthology and a reading from it at the conference at some length. There were also mentions on Channel 4 News and in the Daily Mail, while The Mirror online quoted approvngly from some of the poems in the anthology. The collection was selling like hot cakes at the Labour conference - and not just to national news reporters.    

Write Out Loud spoke to Merryn Williams, editor of Poems for Jeremy Corbyn, an anthology of poems by 50 poets in support of the re-elected Labour leader, and asking her how and why she put such a collection together. 

Williams, pictured below, who describes herself as a “poet, critic, bibliophile and fanatic in the cause of good English”, said: “Jeremy Corbyn invaded my life about a year ago and is still there!  I wrote a poem about him - 'parable of the signpost and the weathercock' - which is in the anthology.  Two other people put together ebooks of poems as a tribute to him, and some of these poems were requested by me - Pascale Petit, Ian Birchall, Ian Pindar, Penelope Shuttle, Kevin Higgins, Mike Jenkins. I felt that a printed volume was likely to be more lasting and I also thought that this was the best way I could support Jeremy.  I hate arguments and am no good at knocking on doors or phoning total strangers, but I have done quite a lot of blogging in his defence.” 

Not all the poems in the book are specifically about Corbyn. “Alan Brownjohn recalls a horrifying event in his grandmother's life; Ann Drysdale watches the fall of Saddam's statue - on TV; Mark Haworth-Booth counts off the disappearing species; Harry Owen meets a monster; Penelope Shuttle hears the wolf at the door and Pat Winslow remembers prisoners in the Gulag. Scarlet macaws, black spiders, Muntjac deer, respected MPs and refugees stalk through these pages and there are also some referendum poems (“Twas Brexit”, cries Steve Pottinger, with apologies to Lewis Carroll)."

Poems that do feature Corbyn in the anthology “take up arguments about bowing at the Cenotaph or dressing smartly.  Several of them are about the issues he has championed - green issues, for instance, or war and peace, homelessness, political prisoners, austerity.  Some are about the attacks on him by the media and by his colleagues.”

She added: “I don't think this book will make any difference to the opinion polls or the leadership election, but I do hope to make a small difference to how Jeremy is perceived by the public, and who knows, some may be quoted when his biographies are written in 50 years’ time!”

The anthology will be launched in London at Housman’s bookshop in Caledonian Road, King’s Cross on Friday 14 October, entry free but with collection, with a similar event in Oxford on Saturday 22 October at Wesley Memorial Hall, New Inn Hall Street, at 4.15pm (entry £4/£2). Poems for Jeremy Corbyn is published by Shoestring Press. Jeremy Corbyn has been invited to the London launch, although it is not known if he will attend.

The 50 poets in the collection are Michael Bartholomew-Biggs, Neil Beardmore, Ian Birchall, Janine Booth, Alan Brownjohn, Rip Bulkeley, Olivia Byard, Di Coffey, Deborah Cox, Barbara Cumbers, Simon Curtis, Tony Curtis, Ann Drysdale, Matt Duggan, John Freeman, Neil Fulwood, Katherine Gallagher, Owen Gallagher, John Gohorry, Adrian Green, Nicki Griffin, Steve Griffiths, Paul Groves, Mark Haworth-Booth, Stuart Henson, Kevin Higgins, Norton Hodges, Stephen Horsfall, Mike Jenkins, Helen Kidd, Louise Larchbourne, John Lucas, Tom McColl, Alwyn Marriage, Nicholas Murray, Antony Owen, Harry Owen, Pascale Petit, Ian Pindar, Steve Pottinger, Gerard Rochford, Sue Shaw, Penelope Shuttle, Hylda Sims, Seán Street, Merryn Williams, Simon Williams, Pat Winslow, Abigail EO Wyatt, and Neil Young.

 

Background: Jeremy Corbyn 'writes poetry on the train'