Poetry gets a bad rep; the poems we do at GCSE rarely connect us to the author. Whilst I read incredible works of poetic fiction, they always left 16-year-old me feeling distanced from the page. That was, until I watched spoken word performances, and later read the writings of Andrea […]
Poetry & Literature
The Verse’s Ciara Brennan reviews If Beale Street Could Talk, by James Baldwin (published in 1974 by Dial Press): “a 5/5 (…) this tale of systematic racism, and the power of love, is one we should all take heed of.” When 19-year-old Tish’s 22-year-old lover Fonny is arrested for a […]
The Verse’s Ciara Brennan reviews Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream, by Hunter S. Thompson (published in 1971 by Random House), a “4 out of 5, the novel speaks on the importance of everything we lost generations ago – something […]
The Verse’s Kerrie Draghi tells us what she thinks of the author Gillian Flynn and her strong female characters. Author of Sharp Objects, Dark Places and Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn writes unlikeable women. Her female characters are damaged, dysfunctional, vengeful and sometimes murderous. I’ve watched a lot of ‘vengeful women’ […]
The Verse’s Kate Mager reviews Bang Said the Gun at the Brighton Festival, to find out if it really delivers ‘poetry for people who don’t like poetry.’ As the self-proclaimed ‘rowdiest poetry event in the universe’, ‘Bang said the Gun’ offers an evening of raucous behaviour and laughter intertwined with […]
