Deborah Finding

Extract from 'Sonneting' by Deborah Finding. Read the full poem published in Issue 9, link in our bio. #poetry #poem #poemoftheday

This photo is too cute not to be on the grid (thank you Lenna for taking such a good one!). You too could be as happy as @siandocksey with a copy of my book if you also buy one (link in bio, IT'S WHAT MARX WOULD HAVE WANTED etc). Jokes aside, how brilliant to get to do my thing at @thesohopoly and have other artists like Sian, whose work I really admire, be there in the room too. A little moment of joy to keep. ❤️

Happy to be united at last! Huge thanks to my lovely editor @fernflourentzou at @writebloodyuk who went above and beyond to get these to me so we didn’t have to worry about not having them tomorrow. If you are coming to the now sold out ‘Our Community Valentine’ tomorrow at @thesohopoly with me and the wonderful @tashwalker85 - we will BOTH now have books there to show you :) I hope you will love #mymarxistvalentine in real life! ❤️🌸 #valentinespoem #marxistfeminist #lovepoems #poetrycommunity

This was me, pre-launch, downstairs on my own at @burleyfisher (& they’d just very kindly made me a cup of tea). I was full of nerves, especially with not having the books on the day. But I needn’t have been as it turned into a really beautiful and special night, full of friends and support and good vibes ❤️🌸 More to come but a massive thank you from me to everyone who came, listened, laughed, pre-ordered, and stayed to celebrate. I’m very lucky and I won’t forget it. ❤️🌸 #mymarxistvalentine #lovepoem #poetrycommunity

Thank you to everyone who came down to @dfinding ’s My Marxist Valentine book launch at @burleyfisher last night, to the wonderfully accommodating team, and all the talented comrades who read! Link in bio to order your copy! ❤️ Congratulations on a beautiful collection Deborah 🩷

Can't wait to teach this workshop in the GORGEOUS @landmarkartscentre - if you live in or anywhere near Teddington and like poetry, please come along, we'll have a lovely time reading and writing about love in all its forms 💕 Link to book in bio!

I first met Glyn Maxwell in May 2022, barely 6 months into taking up poetry again, and knowing next to no-one. My first reading had been as part of the @live.canon lunchtime poets session not much earlier, and I had absolutely loved it. I was writing then with a lot to say (of course :)), and my own sense of melody, timing and general writing aesthetics - but knowing next to nothing about form, and having had nothing since school in the way of poetry education. I signed up for Live Canon's half-day Masterclass on form, which was being taught by Glyn and was brilliant. The wonderful founder and director of Live Canon, @heleneastman7705 - who gave me that first reading, and would later go on to publish my second pamphlet 'Amortisation' as one of the winners of the pamphlet competition in 2023 - very kindly invited me to stay after the class to have lunch with her and Glyn. We had a wonderful time talking all things poetry, and when Helen had to head off, Glyn and I got another glass of wine (this was a portent of things to come) and continued to chat like there was no tomorrow. He emailed me over a poem of his that we had been talking about (which ended up in his book, The Big Calls) and we kept talking. I tentatively reached out to ask whether he might do some poetry mentoring with me - and we have been working together ever since. Glyn's poetic instincts are second-to-none, and the more we work together, the more I am able to listen to my internalised Glyn Maxwell voice, and know instinctively when something needs fixing - and why. He has always been incredibly supportive of, and excited by, my work, which has given me such confidence. He read the manuscript of 'My Marxist Valentine' live in the pub in front of me (somehow this is the style that works best for both of us!), laughing loudly and saying 'this is really good' at regular intervals, as he made notes and comments and jokes. I knew then that this book had something, and I started to feel so excited about it. So, all ongoing love & gratitude to Glyn - and if you want to know what made him laugh, please pre-order 'My Marxist Valentine' now! Link in bio. ❤️🌸 #mymarxistvalentine #poetrycommuníty

I first heard @luukekennnard read at a @getmoregravy event a couple of years ago and I was blown away by how funny and clever his poems were, and I loved the new work he was starting to write about the Old Testament. Of course I went straight home and ordered "Notes on the Sonnets', which I am sure I was much later to than everyone else, but if you have NOT yet read it, then run, don't walk - if prose poems based on every one of Shakespeare's sonnets set in a dystopian but all too familiar house party are your thing (AND HOW COULD THEY NOT BE?) - to grab a copy of this brilliant book. Here is a man who will commit to a theme and see it through until either it kills him, or something very interesting is worked out, I thought. That is a vibe I am very much on board with... And then along came 'The Book of Jonah', which is just exactly that, and so delightfully heavy on research, annotations and bloody-mindedness that it gave me a real sense of kinship :) The book itself is of course an absolute delight and I highly recommend buying a copy - if depressed Old Testament prophets musing on the nature of callings are your thing (AND HOW COULD THEY NOT BE?). So, I reached out to Luke and said some modified version of the above (perhaps with only microscopically less intensity) and asked if he'd consider reading My Marxist Valentine, and endorsing it if he liked it (the literary equivalent of going up to another child in the playground and saying I LIKE YOUR SHOES WILL YOU BE MY FRIEND but so much worse - and honestly if you are the kind of person who likes to sit and write poetry, this is not likely to be your strong suit, and surely there must be a better way... but I digress). ANYWAY, all this to say that the fantastically talented (and super productive - just found out his brand new novel Black Bag is coming out in March as well, can't wait) Luke Kennard wrote this truly lovely blurb for me and I'm very grateful. But even more grateful and happy that he actually enjoyed the book. Pre-order now! at the link on / ❤️🌸 #mymarxistvalentine #poetrycommunity #marxistleninist #lovepoems #solidarity

I think 'an erotics of solidarity' might be the best thing I've ever heard, and I will simply never get over the fact that the incredible Fran Lock has used this phrase about my work. I admire Fran's poetry and politics in equal measure and when she sent me over a quote for the book on Christmas Eve 'with feral solidarity', it was a gift I could not have imagined receiving. The picture shows an abridged and edited version of Fran's quote for space reasons on the book, but I'm sharing it all below because it makes me so happy and incredibly proud ❤️ Thank you, Fran! "My Marxist Valentine is an absolute hoot: by turns, a romantic comedy, and a serious exploration into the nature of love inside the distorting polar vortex of late-stage capitalism. Finding charts this potentially treacherous territory with warmth, wit, and formal exuberance. This collection is spirited, in every sense of the word, as the narrator is joined by a spectral cast of revolutionary women, including Emma Goldman and (personal favourite) Rosa Luxemburg. These voices glitch and crackle in an agile contemporary idiom that manages to be both urgent and playful. Reading My Marxist Valentine during the dark half of the year has been restorative. Specifically, it restores “love” from the mingily privatised sphere of capitalism and patriarchy, and radicalism from the duties of joyless, grinding anger. What Finding gives us is an erotics (in Lorde's capacious sense) of solidarity. A comradeship that places jouissance, joy and laughter at the centre of shared struggle." ❤️🌸 #mymarxistvalentine #marxistfeminism #solidarity #poetrycommunity

I am so totally thrilled at the prospect of seeing this gorgeous thing in the real world and then getting to share it with you. Huge thanks to @fernflourentzou and @writebloodyuk for believing in it and bringing it to life. I have been working on this book for four years, and it represents the thinking, reading and listening I've done during that period about love, community and solidarity. Expect anti-capitalist nursery rhymes, quirky love poems, quizzes and games, protest sonnets, and - of course - a crushingly earnest desire to make political theory accessible :) Launch details coming VERY SOON but you can already preorder it on the front page of / I hope it goes without saying it makes the perfect Valentine's gift for the comrade of your choice... ❤️ 🌸 #mymarxistvalentine #poetrycommunity #solidarity #lovepoems

New year, new website, new release! Have a look around, and you can now download a free poetry sampler that includes a poem from each of our beautiful books. My Marxist Valentine by @dfinding is available for pre-order and will be released 1st February, so you can grab your copies now! Would he ever say, ‘I love you?’ Would she ever say, ‘You were right about historical materialism?’ This collection charts a relationship of contradictions between an idealistic and romantic narrator, and her eponymous antagonist, a man of science, study and silence, at least where love is concerned. Seeking answers in the relationships of revolutionaries like Eleanor Marx, Rosa Luxemburg and Emma Goldman, and attempting to extract dating advice from Marx’s Capital, poet Deborah Finding invites the reader to consider if, when, and how love can be truly radical. It calls on a wide cast of characters, where Jane Austen goes up against Karl Marx to provide some critiques of leftwing hypocrisy, and a communist Mr Darcy finds himself referencing both Judith Butler and Taylor Swift on his search for the ideal anti-capitalist comrade to join him in the good fight. The big ideas are presented with humour and generosity, achieving depth without sacrificing accessibility - making My Marxist Valentine a challenging, darkly funny and unexpectedly touching poetry adventure in search of solidarity and the true meaning of love.