Karl Marx once said that history repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. Since we seem so intent to go on repeating the mistakes of the past, Comrade Laughter asks why there are not more people laughing. Featuring George Bush, Tony Blair, some vanishing elephants and a monkey, Comrade Laughter sets out to discover who put the laughter in slaughter. A book for humourless old lefties everywhere. It only hurts when you laugh.
'The unofficial poet laureate of the north.' Northern Echo
'His Englishness resides in working-class and local concerns, unselfconscious while being consciously part of a Shelleyan political tradition.' The North
'His rhyming verse far surpasses that of some of the fashionable rhymsters.' Penniless Press
'Croft is attached to a radical tradition in English thought that has become almost completely lost ... By speaking of hope in a world of threat, by sustaining irony in the face of defeat, by satirising the enemies of love and by using wit and poetic skill to make real the alternatives, Andy Croft gives the English radical tradition its latest and freshest expression.' Terrible Work
Comrade Laughter costs £7.50 and was published in 2004.
ISBN: 978-1-873226-66-7
Andy Croft lives in Middlesbrough, where he has been active for many years in community writing projects. Writing Residencies include the Hartlepool Headland, the Great North Run and HMP Holme House. His verse-play about the history of Middlesbrough, Smoke! was shown at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2004.
His books include Red Letter Days, Out of the Old Earth, A Weapon in the Struggle, Selected Poems of Randall Swingler, Holme and Away, Comrade Heart and forty-four books for teenagers, mostly about football.
His books of poetry include Nowhere Special, Gaps Between Hills (with Mark Robinson), Headland, Just as Blue, Great North, Comrade Laughter, Sticky and two anthologies, Red Sky at Night (edited with Adrian Mitchell) and North by North East (edited with Cynthia Fuller).
He writes a regular poetry column in the Morning Star and runs Smokestack Books.
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