Station Road I live in a village with a Station Road.It has houses with low wallsthe village hall, community libraryno shops, a couple of bus stopsthe Parish Council officeand a Station Drive coming off it. What it doesn’t haveis a … Read more
10 questions for Disability History Month
Article
Friday, November 22, 2024
All4Inclusion asked me ten questions, and posted them and my answers on its website as part of its Disability History Month celebrations Ten questions for Disability History Month 1. Can I start by asking you to tell us a little … Read more
What Rough Beast: poems on Trump and Trumpism
Article
Tuesday, November 5, 2024
As citizens vote in the Presidential election in the USA, an anthology of poems opposing Donald Trump is published in the UK – and it includes Janine Booth’s poem, ‘Hallelujah President Trump’.
Pantoum: At Kindergarten in Lviv
Article
Saturday, November 2, 2024
At Kindergarten in Lviv The sirens sound, the children risePut on their coats and follow teacherAway from danger from the skiesAir raids are a schoolday feature Put on their coats and follow teacherToddle through the honeycombAir raids are a schoolday … Read more
Rachel Reeves says that her Budget will be
Article
Sunday, October 27, 2024
Rachel Reeves says that her Budget will be A Budget for striversfor staying-alivers No tenners or fiversfor dossers or skiversduckers and diverssmokers or drivers Fiscal adviserswon’t risk the reviversThey’ll nudge it or fudge itbut never begrudge itfor toilers, hard-boilerssalt of … Read more
What Doctor Kendall ordered
Article
Friday, October 18, 2024
What Doctor Kendall ordered (as Labour’s Work & Pensions Secretary plans to send Work Coaches to visit mental health in-patients) You think you need some space to breathesome peaceful time awayBut no! You need some handy hintsto spruce your resumé … Read more
Tough Decisions
Article
Friday, September 20, 2024
Villanelle: Tough Decisions
Governments must make tough decisions
Sorry choices, hard selections
Daring shares and long divisions
They’re Oasis
Article
Wednesday, September 18, 2024
THEY’RE OASIS
Their tour’s extensive
Their interviews somewhat defensive
The tickets are rather expensive
But they need more dimes
Patriotism
Article
Wednesday, September 18, 2024
a guest poem by Vicky Thomas St George is cross. The soldier saint says He’s at a loss To understand these days. You who take his flag And use his name As some kind of brag – He is ashamed. … Read more
Anti-union laws bar striking on crucial working-class issues
Article
Thursday, September 12, 2024
Published by Free Our Unions A discussion article by Janine Booth, Free Our Unions supporter. Tory leader Rishi Sunak’s line of attack on the Labour government’s unpopular decision to scrap winter fuel payments for most pensioners is to accuse Prime … Read more
If You Should Win
Article
Wednesday, August 7, 2024
If you get your wayIf the foreigners are kept at bayIf we wind the drawbridge and mine the beachesReach a state of monocultureCreate an all-white social structure Would your wages rise? Or would you find to your surprise your payslip doesn’t grow … Read more
Debating neurodiversity
Article
Wednesday, July 31, 2024
Janine Booth replies to John Cromby and Lucy Johnstone’s post, Neurodiversity – what exactly does it mean?, on Mad in the UK’s website. Throwing the neurodivergent baby out with the bathwater John Cromby and Lucy Johnstone have contributed an interesting … Read more
Ta-ra Tories
Article
Tuesday, July 9, 2024
Ta-ra Penny
Let’s hope that the end of Ms Mordaunt
turns out to be some sort of portent
of Conservative death
the Tories’ last breath
and spares us from more of their torment
Nancy Astor: another statue to fling in the sea
Article
Friday, June 28, 2024
Nancy Astor
in fancy plaster
in copper not in alabaster
Disabled people: Labour manifesto offers little
Article
Wednesday, June 26, 2024
Labour’s general election manifesto offers little more than vague mentions to disabled people, and drops many of the party’s specific pledges.
War, Occupation and Mental Health
Article
Saturday, June 1, 2024
A personal view published in Asylum magazine, Summer 2024.
District 6
Article
Friday, May 24, 2024
District 6 is an area of Cape Town, South Africa, that had a population that was racially mixed until the Apartheid government decreed in 1966 that District 6 become whites-only. Sixty thousand black and coloured residents of District 6 were evicted and their houses demolished.
Neurodiversity in Rail conference
Article
Friday, May 24, 2024
Janine will be a keynote speaker at this year’s Neurodiversity in Rail conference.
Cheese Plant
Article
Sunday, May 12, 2024
I go mental for lentils
and crazy for maize
I’m in an eternal
pine kernel phase
Dirty: Abuse, trauma, failure and hope
Article
Saturday, May 11, 2024
In Dirty, Holly Bars has created an extraordinary, mighty, courageous, poetic record of child sexual abuse and of the ways in which survivors are traumatised and failed.