Sophie Mayer

Catechism: Poems for Pussy Riot, which I co-edited with Mark Burnhope and Sarah Crewe (we're interviewed ensemble on Sabotage Reviews), is now out! And you can hear Sarah and Cat Lucas of English PEN talk about the book on Radio Free Europe! Available from English PEN, who are posting poems & their Russian translations daily. The ebook is available for the magnificent sum of 'donate what you think it's worth' (we recommend a fiver), and a print-on-demand hard copy for £7.50 -- for 110 incredible poems! All proceeds go to English PEN Writers at Risk and the Pussy Riot Legal Fund. And there's a Russian ebook and events around the country to come... 

All of which activity was partly inspired by seeing Sally Potter's Ginger and Rosa. I interviewed Sally about the film, whose protagonist, Ginger, is a teenage poet protesting nuclear weapons, for Sight & Sound, and reviewed the film for The F-Word. Ginger's passionate engagement with the world through poetry came to mind while reviewing my stand-out film (also for Sight & Sound) of the London Film Festival, Maria Saakyan's I'm Going to Change My Name: Evridika, the main character, is also a poet (and a filmmaker), vividly alive. I was lucky enough to get to write about Maria's first feature, The Lighthouse, for Second Run's DVD. She's a true poet of cinema, trained in Russia. Hmmm. Maybe I'll send her a copy of Catechism...