I am not sure how many of you will have heard of Mike Quille. For the past ten years he has been behind the publication of numerous poetry collections and anthologies of working class poetry. No other publisher supports working class left wing poetry more than Mike who is ably supported in his editorship by a network of poets such as Mike Jenkins of the Red Poets, Alan Morrison, Alan McGuire, and the inimitable Fran Lock.

However, as with many institutions and publishers, Culture Matters is finding it difficult to carry on adding to its great catalogue – costs of printing and posting have gone up as well as the general cost of living. With the recent retirement of Smokestack Books, opportunities for working class poets has been diminished further.

Culture Matters is marking its tenth anniversary this year. I was an associate editor in those early days and in 2018 Mike published my book, The Combination: a poetic couple of the Communist Manifesto. I don’t think anyone else would have published it.

So we need your help. It isn’t much but if you could buy one or more books, it will greatly advance Culture Matters ability to publish working class poetry in an arena where very few publishers are taking on such issues as poverty, politics, and social history.

Here is a link to the Culture Matters catalogue. There you will find anthologies covering the hundred year anniversary of the 1926 General Strike, the 90th anniversary of the Spanish Civil War, and ‘We are All Palestinians’, as well as collections by Fran Lock (her ‘Spectres, // Defectors, // No Respecters‘ is a masterpiece), Meryn Williams, the late great Fred Voss, and Martin Hayes.

If you are new to Culture Matters you may want to buy the ‘Building Jerusalem’ anthology which has extracts from all the books and pamphlets published over the last ten years.

THANK YOU FOR READING AND SUPPORRT

In solidarity, Peter Raynard – editor of Proletarian Poetry.