A Pig Among Panthers
Richard Aoki was not your typical member of the Black Panther Party. Most famous for both arming and training the young Panthers in their early years, Aoki was a streetfighter belonging to many radical groups in the San Francisco Bay Area before joining the party. Rising to the rank of field marshal
A Short Love Story
She was bent over a basin washing her hair, standing there with the failing light just catching on her shoulders. I knew then that this would be the last time I should be close to her, and the last opportunity I would have to make her hear me. So I called softly: ‘Ada’, for I […]
Cambridge Letter – Sylvia Plath
‘Guess Where It’s Heaven to be a Girl!’ the Woman’s Sunday Mirror gushed a short while back; we couldn’t, so read on. Cambridge University, it seems, is this very green Eden, offering women students ‘a crazy mixed-up social whirl, with an average of 500 bottle par
Rhubarb
Rhubarb Two thousand years beyond their time Untutored in the art of scope These planes repeat an old mistake. Flora now buried under grime Once healed the first expansive ache And threw their drowning world a rope. But vast exceptions past their prime On wasted ground without r
Contribute to The ISIS!
The ISIS Magazine is calling for submissions for next term’s issue! Send your pitches to [email protected] ARTICLES We’re looking for anything and everything this term – throw away any stereotype you have of what an “ISIS article” is. All we want is a piece that has something to say
A word in your ear: An Interview with Don Paterson
Don Paterson has written some of the most brilliant poems of the past twenty years, so it is with a deal of persistence that I edge the dictaphone closer and closer to him across the table. He speaks very quietly, and these are not cheap words. Winner of the 2009 Forward Poetry Prize for his [&helli
Kim Jong-il’s Cinema Club
On 26th December, 2010, North Korean state television showed Bend It Like Beckham. This tale of culture clashes in London ladies’ football team starring Keira Knightley had the dubious honour of being the first Western film to be shown anywhere in the notoriously secretive state. And what an odd c
All Quiet on the African Front: A troubling blind spot in the British press
Ask somebody what they know about the Second Congo War and you will receive one of two responses. Either there will be a look of blankness accompanied by a comment like “I didn’t even know there was a first Congo War”, or, the respondent’s eyes will drift as they struggle to gather vague fra
Ice Cream and Communism: The Sweet Side Effects of the Cuban Revolution
An immense ice-cream parlour stands on a leafy street in Havana, Cuba, like a towering UFO. Reputedly over 30,000 customers visit every day to devour scoops of Coppelia ice cream, Cuba’s government-subsidised snack of choice. The Havana branch of Coppelia lies in the art deco time warp of Vedado,