On December 1st, the Independent MP for Islington North, Jeremy Corbyn, embarked on a journey to the University of York. Not only was he here to partake in the invigorating York Dialectic Union debate, but he also made the journey to discuss and promote his new book, Poetry for the Many. By reimagining the Labour Party's 2017 manifesto slogan, ‘For the many not the few’, he advocates the belief that poetry is not limited to the privileged few, but rather a powerful means of expression that belongs to the masses. Collaborating with Len McCluskey, this compelling anthology sheds light on the transformative nature of poetry to inspire, unite, and give a voice to everyday individuals. Following his reading and book signing in The Portal Bookshop, I was fortunate enough to engage Mr Corbyn in a brief conversation regarding his anthology.
What inspired you to write this book?
I've always enjoyed poetry. Len and I discussed poetry at various meetings. He enjoys poetry as well, even though everybody's very surprised by this. I don't know why they should be surprised, but they are. We then did an event at the castle in Liverpool. We were amazed at the number of people that turned up when we were just reading poetry with Melissa and a lot of young people turned up who wanted to read their own poetry so I said, “Go right ahead!”. We then had the idea at the end of that to do this book, ‘Poetry for the Many’, which is about the choice of poems we've made and then we've described why we've made those choices. The only arguments were which poems to leave out because of the size of the book. If it had my way, it would have been about another couple of hundred pages. It's also about trying to make poetry accessible, saying to young people, please write poetry, because in poetry, you tell a truth, you give an impression, you display a view, which often you wouldn't do in speech and you wouldn't do it in written prose. I'm really pleased with the way it's gone and it seems to have sold an awful lot these past two or three weeks. I just did an event this afternoon in the bookshop in the centre of town, which is great.
Are there any specific poets or poems included in the anthology that stand out to you?
Well, there's so many in this book, it's very hard to pick one out. There are some poems there that are unusual. There's a poem by me in there at the end about Calais, called ‘Calais in Winter’, which is about the way refugees survive in Calais. There's also one that is not often published in Britain at all. There's a woman living in a monastery in Mexico where they discovered that she could read and write and write poetry and write about women's rights. Most of her poetry was burnt by the church and destroyed. Some of it appeared in Spain when some of the governments took it back. I suspect that some is in the Vatican Library, but we have no way of knowing that. The poem is called ‘You, Foolish Men. Read’ it, it's very strong. And this was written 100 years before Mary Wollstonecraft wrote it.
What do you hope readers take away from your book?
I hope that they’ll take away from the book that there's some poetry there that will make you think, some will make you cry, some will make you happy. And it does talk about the natural world and environment, it talks about hope, it talks about personal relations, it also talks about tragedy. There's a poem by my friend, the late Adrian Mitchell, who wrote a poem about Victor Jara, who was a Chilean singer that was killed in the stadium in 1973, is much revered in Chile to this day. And as the poem is called, his hands were gentle, his hands were strong. And Victor's widow, Joan Jara, died last week. From most of the time of exile she was living in my constituency. So, I'm very proud of the relationship with her.
If you were stranded on a desert island and could only bring one book, which book would you choose?
Either ‘Ulysses’ to read it again and again and again, I’ve read it twice. There is a different meaning in every line. I wouldn't say every sentence because there's no punctuation in it. I'd say, ‘Ulysses’ or if we're allowed an extra, I’d also pick the complete works of Shakespeare, that way I’d be happy.
