Shell Island (Waywiser, 2006),
Can still be purchased here: https://waywiser-press.com/product/shell-island/#description
Q: Comrade" reads like an intimate insider view of "George Orwell." What drew you to describe such a figure?
A: I knew the person that the poem is about. He was a friend of my grandfather's and volunteered to fight with the International Brigade during the Spanish Civil War. He wasn't on his own. A lot of working class women and men went to Spain in the 1930s in order to fight against the Fascists despite all the attention paid to the middle class intellectuals who went also. I wanted to write a tribute to him as an individual and to the working class of a particular generation who were politicised in a way that people aren't today. I think people genuinely felt that they could bring about change through political engagement - whether that meant joining a trade union at home or picking up a rifle and going to Spain.