Two poems in Sarah Wimbush’s new collection ‘STRIKE’, out with Stairwell Books this month, first featured in Poetry Wales 59.1 – here, we share those poems with you, along with an invitation to see Sarah read at the book’s launch at the National Coal Mining Museum on Sunday 28th January
Pits and Perverts
In 1984 the ‘Pits and Perverts’ concert, organised by Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM), raised £5,650 for striking miners and their families in South Wales.
Come, dance around our banners lift the blindfolds from your eyes, top-up buckets with the readies and Respect tell me why, oh, tell me why. Come dance with the Great Atlantic Fault these coal-cutters, these dark hearts, Relax among rainbows and small town boys – with us, they shall not starve. There are rocks in our closets, Love and Pride in our snap tins, from the Gay’s The Word bookshop to Dulais Valley Lodge to semis in Milton Keynes. We are the red-lipped and ‘Martha Scargill’, we are the spirit of Turing and Wilde, we are Gay, straight and the undecided, kids of the coalface and those in denial. Spin me right 'round, baby queens and kings of the underground, hand in hand across the divide – no surrender, forever proud.
Coal Men
Back to backs swoop across the colosseum. An army waits by chill windows as three kings march over bombarded slack. Men of Atlas, their world: a sieve-shield, a trident, Santa sacks loaded with black diamonds. Uphill, all the way back to those whistling chimneys.
‘STRIKE’ Book Launch
Join Sarah Wimbush at the National Coal Mining Museum (Wakefield, England), on Sunday January 28th for readings from ‘STRIKE’ as well as a talk about her writing process and a Q&A session. Tickets are free, though pre-booking is advised
This link will take you to an external website. This event is not affiliated with Poetry Wales and we are not involved in its organisation
‘STRIKE’ by Sarah Wimbush
It’s March 1984 and the miners’ strike has just started. By exploring both famous and previously unseen photographs through the lens of poetry, STRIKE captures the turbulence of one of the longest industrial disputes in British history, and the spirit of a marginalised community on the verge of profound change.
These poems are so powerful and moving that they almost set the page alight with their anger and craft; set alongside stunning photographs they really are first drafts of a history that needs to be told.
IAN McMILLAN – poet, journalist, playwright, broadcaster
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Sarah Wimbush
Sarah Wimbush (she/her) is a Yorkshire poet. Her first collection, Shelling Peas with My Grandmother in the Gorgiolands, was published with Bloodaxe in 2022. She has recently had poems published in PN Review and the Morning Star. Her forthcoming collection, STRIKE (Stairwell, 2024), commemorates the 40th anniversary of the miners’ strike 1984-85.
Follow her on Twitter @SarahWimbush
