Longing

Book Review / 29 September 2026 The Long Version: the superb portrait of a middle-aged feminist 29 September 2026 HELEN VASSALLO explores a brilliant and anarchic novel that situates its gutsy protagonist between tradition and radicalism

MARK TURNER points to the paradoxical pleasures and glaring omissions provided by contemporary ‘tribute’ jazz performances

DAVID NICHOLSON enjoys a tragic view of the artist’s life by a company hit by redundancies, industrial action and public protests

PETER MASON is impressed by the political charge of Sting’s musical tale of shipyard closure

I dream we are sitting in a café in Ramallah or Tel Avivwith a few Palestinian friendssharing mint tea and sweet coffee conversing in caressing wordsnot screaming politics or war

I remember the days before the time to weepbefore we cried the same tears

I remember the gift of consolationIsraelis bearing sick Palestinians to hospitalthey waited at the checkpointseyes meeting hands gesturing the wheels of hope the road to recovery

I remember Palestinian daughters they who recognised the stranger  they who served a hundred feastsbefore their hands were hiddenbefore the groaning of locks and bolts and hinges

I remember stumbling across worn stones and tired ruinsthe remnants of dynasties and conquestsof trauma bleeding down the generationsof Judea, the Romans, Palestine,the history woven to claim the Land the history that walks and stalks usit is alive and it is raving

scatter to the winds the ripples of historydo not let the shadows inembrace the silence of the stones

let the wounds burst let the scars rupturelet us sing together in the spirit music of wind, sea and land

Dr Jennifer Langer is a poet, editor and founding director of Exiled Writers Ink. She has published one book or poetry, The Search (Victorina Press, 2021) and edited five anthologies of exiled literature.

Poetry submissions to [email protected]

Read more of the Morning Star’s 21st Century Poetry