Marxist. Trade Unionist. Socialist-feminist. Author. Poet. Speaker. Tutor. RMT ex-Exec. Workers' Liberty. Autie. Bi. PUFC fan.
Poems and pondering on all matters health, and on fightingting to defend our NHS.
Stay the fuck home, they yelled
at a grey-haired man in the supermarket
that they were also in
Stay the fuck home, they insisted -
Follow government advice!
(which is not for everyone to Stay the fuck home)
Stay the fuck home, they typed,
logged on to the company account
working from home on full pay
Accept our rule and stop this hue and cry
Some loved ones have to go before their time
It's just the weak and sick and old who'll die
We have a theory here to justify
Our nudging unit thinks it's just sublime
Accept our rule and stop this hue and cry
No need to test or rest or notify
Our British stock is mostly in its prime
It's just the weak and sick and old who'll die
You have no skills – you’re just a carer,
a labourer, an apron-wearer,
You smear on cream and dish out pills –
you don’t have skills.
You have no skills, you just wipe arses,
the underside of the underclasses,
You wipe up drool, make tea and chat –
Where’s the skill in that?!
The NHS is not another country
Going to clinic's not a trip abroad
Its purpose is for treating not for hunting
No frontiers from reception to the ward
I have to cross the town not cross the oceans
A hospital's no tourist trap now, is it?
Rather than the needles, stitches, lotions
So many other sites I'd rather visit
Not smuggling drugs nor medicines nor pills in
The staff are healers, they're not border guards
I've nothing to declare except my illness
I don't send postcards, I get Get Well cards
- They treat my sickness not my shade of skin
- Why should I need a passport to get in?
Janine launches her new collection of covid compositions with an hour (or maybe a little more) of verses versus the virus.
There will also be a contribution from special guest The Repeat Beat Poet - not to be missed! And there will be a presentation from the Safe and Equal campaignm, which has helped workers to win full sick and isolation pay during the pandemic.
Published in Solidarity 587, 7 April 2021
Disabled people’s organisations have scored an important victory as the government has announced that local councils will no longer be excused from meeting their social care obligations.
Launching this anthology of pandemic poetry, Janine and other poets will read their contributions.
Email Janine for Zoom link.
Janine rants about Poets versus Covid and Cuts.
The annual 'Heart Unions' event this years sees a focus on the perilous state of the arts during the COVID19 pandemic.
For 'COVID19 and the Arts' we are joined by:
< Nicole Johnson (Musicians' Union), Musician;
< John Oversby (UCU), Musician;
This event will be rescheduled for the new year.
Janine Booth and other contributing poets read poems from the anthology Coronaverses: poems from the pandemic at a Brighton venue with Covid safety measures in place.
On Facebook Live! Tune in to Janine's Facebook page for an hour of poetry on this year's two big issues - the Covid-19 crisis and racist police brutality.
