What convinces Jeremy Corbyn that ‘there is a poet in all of us’?

Much like its editors, I have no idea who Poetry for the Many is for. However, the choir it preaches to is quickly identified. It opens with a dedication to Julian Assange, the free speech martyr in no way a narcissist patsy for a hostile state. A member of UB40 summarises the book’s aim on the jacket: to ‘encourage the working classes to embrace and enjoy culture’. Elsewhere, in the course of four separate introductions, I divine some plan to make poetry both politically relevant and accessible to the lower orders.

This project apparently requires the literary advocacy of Len McCluskey and Jeremy Corbyn. They have written personal introductions to their favourite poems and invited ‘friends’ to do the same. These friends are mostly drawn from the celebrity class of comedians, auteurs and actors traditionally first to man the barricades (Russell Brand was dropped shortly before going to print). This notably pale group, Melissa Benn improbably claims, has often been ‘sidelined, mocked or castigated for their efforts’, and may therefore read this with a sense of déjà vu.