Marxist. Trade Unionist. Socialist-feminist. Author. Poet. Speaker. Tutor. RMT ex-Exec. Workers' Liberty. Autie. Bi. PUFC fan.

16: The Age Of Discontent - a ranting, rhyming, revolting review of the year

It's a book! Buy it here.

It's a CD! Buy it here.

Contents:

  1. Sandbags and Gladrags
  2. Rachman’s Heirs
  3. Tell Me Jeremy
  4. Man in the Border Post
  5. Clean for the Queen?
  6. Haiku series: International Working Women’s Day
  7. Zero Hours
  8. Change Here Please
  9. Wondering Eyes
  10. Autism Bewareness Month
  11. The Barred List at the Half Moon, Herne Hill
  12. Queen Vic (Let’s Do It)
  13. Zac and the Whistle
  14. Crazed Loner
  15. Not Like Us
  16. Haiku: Exit Left?
  17. I Write This Poem With a Heavy Heart
  18. Love Labour’s Lost
  19. I Will Be With You, Whatever
  20. Her Name is Reeva
  21. If You Can’t Beat ’Em, Cheat ’Em
  22. The Strike Train
  23. The Eleventh Commandment
  24. The Sexism Olympics
  25. #labourpurge2
  26. Bodily Fluids Interception Team
  27. Haiku: Eleven Plus
  28. How to Bring Back the Hunt
  29. From Alex, 6 Years Old
  30. R-SOL: Rejection for Speakers of Other Languages
  31. 21 October 1966
  32. Memento Mori
  33. Pro Patria Mori
  34. Rudolf the Unionised Reindeer

Now with supplement ...

  1. Babyface
  2. Bojo Logic
  3. Kids in Crates
  4. Thick Racists
  5. Hallelujah President Trump
  6. Royals in Need
  7. Liberation
  8. Seasonal Solidarity

And it was a tour ... until Janine was diagnosed with cancer and had to cancel it (boo). Cancelled dates are preserved below for posterity.

 

’16: THE AGE OF DISCONTENT

Janine Booth’s ranting, rhyming, revolting review of the year

From the EU referendum to the Chilcot report, the floods to Oscar Pistorius, from the Queen’s birthday to the attempted dethronement of Jeremy Corbyn – 2016 is a huge year in politics and society. All these and many more issues are chronicled in performance verse by ranting lefty poet Janine Booth.

 

Funny, biting and original.
Francesca Martinez

A one-woman riot.
Joelle Taylor

Utterly magnificent.
Phill Jupitus

 

Attila reviews '16

Submitted by Janine on 03 December 2016 at 13:33

Attila the Stockbroker writes in his Morning Star column:

After the French gigs on Wednesday and Thursday I came back to Cambridge yesterday for a trades council gig with a very brave and talented woman.

I first met Janine Booth in 1983 when, aged 16, she interviewed me for her fanzine Blaze the evening after Brighton had beaten Sheffield Wednesday to reach the FA Cup final for the first and only time in our history.

She turned into a fine performance poet who joined our ranting ranks in the mid-’80s and then went off to work on the London Underground, become an RMT activist and have three lovely sons with her partner, fellow RMT militant John Leach.

Daniel Randall (The Ruby Kid) on '16 THE AGE OF DISCONTENT

Submitted by Janine on 19 November 2016 at 17:14

Daniel recommends that you buy the book.

2016 has been a strange year so far. I'm writing this in late September, so I suppose it’s possible that some cataclysmically normal event might occur in the final few months of the year that will restore balance and make us think it wasn’t such an odd year after all. But, I doubt it. 

This is a period in which doctors have placed themselves in the industrial vanguard of the working class, and a serial backbench rebel socialist MP has won the leadership of the Labour Party by landslides, twice. Strange times indeed. 

Sometimes it has felt like the world was collapsing around us. Brutal wars across the globe, generating a humanitarian crisis on a scale not seen for a generation, and a rising tide of nationalism that swept Britain out of the European Union. But in amongst the horror, always, the glimmers of resistance and hope – sometimes spectacularly expressed, sometimes more quietly, but always there. 

This collection is an account of both the seeming collapse and the sparks of hope – as raucous, irreverent, simple, complex, poignant, funny, whimsical, and profound as a document of such a strange time should be. 

These are poems, but they are also conversations between friends, workmates, neighbours, and comrades – a fitting register for a collection aimed fundamentally at chronicling human experience. 

Some of the poems collected here, like ‘The Strike Train’, ‘If You Can’t Beat ’Em, Cheat ’Em’, and ‘The Eleventh Commandment’, were written in direct response to (indeed, in the service of) labour-movement struggles. Others, like ‘Wondering Eyes’ and ‘Man At The Border Post’, respond to global-scale world events. All express Janine’s deep commitment to working-class internationalism, socialist-feminism, disabled people’s liberation, and taking every opportunity to mock and lampoon the mendacity and hypocrisy of the rich and powerful. 

Chroniclers of 2016: abandon your plans for a tedious TV talking-heads review of the year featuring Paul Ross. Read this book instead. 

Daniel Randall (The Ruby Kid)

 

POSTPONED '16: The Age of Discontent at Well Spoken, Doncaster

Submitted by Admin on 25 July 2016 at 19:13
Event Date

Due to impending surgery, this event has been postponed. Watch this space for rescheduled date!

Janine's ranting, rhyming, revolting review of the year hits Doncaster's fabulous spoken word night, Well Spoken, at the Brewery Tap.

​Also featuring contributions from Jimmy Andrex, Mick Jenkinson and open mic slots.

More info to follow.