NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW ON-LINE

Left Curve is a substantial contribution to the body of academic, cultural and political writing available from the underground of academia. It lives up to the expectations of its own blurb, by being

a mix of traditional and/or experimental essays, graphics, photographs, visual/verbal art, poems, fiction, documents, reviews etc.

The poems are clearly chosen for their political content rather than for any aesthetic or formal concern, but that is only to be expected. Nevertheless, the overall impression of a publication like Left Curve raises concern that such important dissenting voices are limited to the academic underground, and that the view of world affairs to be gleaned from national newspapers and the mainstream press is severely (perhaps dangerously) limited in its political and critical perspective. Left Curve helps to redress this limitation and should be more widely available.

LEFT CURVE combines discussions of economics, politics and culture with poems, obituaries and fiction in an effort as the editorial states

to nurture a critical historical consciousness that refuses to surrender to the commodity specticle (sic) and recognizes the necessity to struggle for a better world.

Essays are grouped thematically making for a satisfying read - there's plenty to chew over. The opening three essays explore economic theory and global capitalism; Carol Brouillett's REINVENTING MONEY, RESTORING THE EARTH, REWEAVING THE WEB OF LIFE revives the old argument that money is the root of all evil, arguing for monetary reform and a return to a gift economy. John Horvath's BOTTOM OF THE BARREL and John O'Kane's ANTITHESES OF CULTURAL MARXISM are informative and highly factual critiques of the global economy.

The AFRICAN FOREGROUNDS section groups together poetry, fiction and art from the continent; it is refreshing to see poetry in translation side by side with its linguistic original especially as Gikuyu and Tigrinya are languages seldom seen outside Africa. NGUGI WA THIONG'O: PENPOINTS, GUNPOINTS AND DREAMS: AN INTERVIEW reflects on the need for one's own language(s) in the face of colonialism; Ngugi wa Thiong'o's opening statement says it all:

My voice is back.

The essays exploring anthropology and global cultural identity articulate theoretical concerns about the West's claim to privilege access and knowledge says: Vijay Prashad's NGO ANTHROPOLOGY

Anthropology as an agent of imperialism was transformed into anthropology as an apolitical science (for some, as a return to an unreconstructive positivism .... ) or else as a blatant partisan link with the ngos or indigenous people.

The excerpt from Mike Evans' SEX, DRUGS & CLINTON: USING STOLEN PASSES TO ENTER THE WHITE HOUSE portrays the modern obsession and intoxication with power; we have all become fans and Monica-wannabes despite claims otherwise (UNPLEASANT MESSAGE):

I wanted to - because I felt I needed to be near the seat of power - and near the button that could end the world.

	Do not expect laurel  
	Do not aspire to full halls,
	Where you would be applauded;
	You will soon grow tired of the re-runs.

I will admit as I begin my review that parts of this edition of had me gasping for air. Theories expounded in some of the essays are so deep and reliant on other, equally difficult works, that I became hopelessly lost and confused. Suffice to say that if you want something worthwhile and meaty to read, try GLOBALIZATION & CULTURAL NATURALISM IN CENTRAL-EAST EUROPE (page 77), or DRINKING PROBLEMS (page 50) which has Irish roots along with POPULAR CULTURE AND THE DUBLIN WORKING CLASS (page 54). Then there is OUR NEXT VIETNAM (page 69), with CAPITAL AND TECHNOLOGY: MARX AND HEIDEGGER (page 95) for pudding.

If most of this is beyond me, why, you might ask, am I still writing a review. Well, among all these heady essays are some marvellous pockets of simply excellent poetry. Now, we're on the same wavelength!

Wars are renown for pushing scientific and technological achievements to brave new heights. I'd argue that wars also have the capacity to push back the boundaries on modern poetry too. The SPECIAL SECTION ON THE KOSOV@ WAR: POETRY including KOSOVAR ALBANIAN POEMS was written after the Kosova war of 1999 and before the recent peoples' revolution, centred on Belgrade. Here are a dozen poems full of painful and vivid word pictures of truly gritty acts and situations of people caught up in conflicts not of their making. So many startling accounts in poems, all of them well written.

We don't see too many prose poems in the UK but here also are nine from a collection of twenty by Chad Faries. I'm not big on prose poems but these are really good examples of the genre. At times eloquent, at others a shocking read — but not as shocking as Pauline Craig's eight page true life poem THE SILENCE OF HORACE EDWARD KELLY. Here is a harrowing account of an exceptionally unlucky black child born in New Jersey to an abusive and violent father. For reasons revealed in the work Horace finally ended up on Death Row. Here is just a tiny segment from early on. Horace Senior is obviously the boy's father:

	Horace Senior molested Junior
	Raping him anally
	Forcing him to copulate him orally
	From then on Junior wet his bed
	Had nighmares and sleepwalked
	His teeth chattered, he spaced out
	Talked to invisible people,
	Shivered, so spasmed he couldn't stop
	He never told anybody
	What his father was doing to him
	His father warned him
	He'd kill him
	If he ever squealed.

THE BRONX STREET CRIMES UNIT BAGS A SUSPECT by Jon Hillson is similarly shocking, similarly haunting. Unfortunately it's not as perfectly balanced or well paced as Craig's poem.

There are lots more solid, well written poems in this edition of LEFT CURVE, quite a few in translation by Jack Hirschman (and others).

Besides all the meaningful essays and doom-n-gloom poems, there is a lighter pocket of five quirky Lolita-ish pieces about puberty, ripening breasts, bras and the effects these are having on daddy (and her uncles) from sixteen year old Ashley Chambers. The writing is confident without being too brash or bawdy. Neither the material nor the treatment cuts any new grass, but it does prove that schools in Washington State are encouraging their daughters to write proficient poetry and to get published on the international stage.

Now, if I could just turn the clock back, move to Washington and change sex...

There's a strand in left-wing thought that reckons the world is in such a terrible state it would be a sin to crack a smile. LEFT CURVE tends in that direction.

Almost everything here is political. The poems on the intifada are by many hands, but all speak the same rhetoric. By the time you've ploughed through the section you feel you've been well shouted at. Perhaps the problem is that few (if any?) of the poets have actually been on the streets of Gaza. A piece in my Sunday newspaper by a reporter who had talked to Palestinian mothers and children living within a stone's throw of an Israeli army post told me much more about the heart of the problem than anything here.

Much better are Paul Polansky's poems about the plight of the Kosovan gypsies, but then Polansky has lived and worked among the people he's speaking for. You hear individual human voices, not generalised anger.

You get a lot for your $10. The veteran communist poet Jack Hirschman dominates the issue with a long poem, a long, dull interview and a very dull, jargony critique of his achievement by Marco Nieli. There is weighty debate among anthropologists from the University of Manchester on the topic, "the right to difference is a fundamental human right" and there are articles about genetic engineering and the stolen US election and other topics of interest to serious-minded left-wing folk. There are lots of poems and even a couple of consciousness-raising short stories.

I'm a leftie myself, so I've got no quarrel with most of what's being said. What I do quarrel with is Puritanism. LEFT CURVE is handsomely produced, hugely serious, well-written, massively righteous: I only wish it was a bit more fun.