Anna Girling

@annagirling

Reading, writing, & thinking about cosmopolitanism, internationalism, decadence, anti-colonialism, anti-fascism, modernism – & Una Marson, Nancy Cunard, Edith Wharton, & other people & things like that. Leverhulme ECF in English at University of Edinburgh.

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Anna Girling@annagirling· 5d

Douglas Garman, CP writer & publisher (incl. at Lawrence & Wishart and Left Review): 'Of course I have "taken sides". I hate Fascism as I hate all barbarism, because it sets out to destroy everything which I love, admire and enjoy.'

Anna Girling@annagirling· 25d

Willie Gallacher, Red Clydesider/CP MP: ‘The Fascist hordes around Franco, representing all the evil forces of Europe, must be driven out... All lovers of Peace & Progress should support the legal Spanish Government in their great task. This is the first step towards the complete defeat of Fascism.’

William Gallacher, M.P.
I AM FOR the People's Government of Spain and for the Spanish People.
The Fascist hordes around Franco, representing all the evil forces of Europe, must be driven out of Spain-out of Europe.
All lovers of Peace and Progress should support the legal Spanish
Government in their great task.
This is the first step towards the complete defeat of Fascism.

Anna Girling@annagirling· 26d

Short-story writer A.E. Coppard: 'Most of all I am against the cold-blooded Tartuffe that watches the murder from the fence, and under the plea of keeping the ring dainty for democracy devotes the upholders of its "honour" to the perils of a Tattoo and the blasphemy of "Abide with Me."'

A. E. Coppard
I AM FOR THE REPUBLIC of Spain and its rightful government.
I AM AGAINST the invasion by Italy and Germany, and AGAINST the massacres by their flunkey Franco.
Most of all I am against the cold-blooded Tartuffe that watches the murder from the fence, and under the plea of keeping the ring dainty for democracy devotes the upholders of its "honour" to the perils of a Tattoo and the blasphemy of "Abide with Me."

Anna Girling@annagirling· May 23

Hot birds, cold beer – just as Virginia would have wanted.

Awning reading Hot Chicks, Cold Beer next to blue plaque for Virginia Woolf and Leonard Woolf.

Anna Girling@annagirling· May 19

It will have taken at least a decade between 72 people being killed at Grenfell by 'systematic dishonesty' and anyone even facing the possibility of being held accountable. It's not even a case of justice delayed, but justice infinitely postponed - Hillsborough all over again.

Grenfell Next of Kin said: “The criminal investigation and justice process should always have come first and been given priority. Instead, the £172m public inquiry was prioritised ahead of criminal accountability and delayed our justice.

“That decision is the central reason criminal accountability has been delayed for so many years and why justice for the Grenfell community continues to be denied.”

Grenfell United, which represents survivors and bereaved families, said: “For our community, this is not news we meet with celebration. We meet it with caution, grief and determination. We have waited almost a decade for accountability.”

The Grenfell inquiry concluded in 2024 that at the heart of the tragedy was the “systematic dishonesty” of multimillion-dollar companies whose products caused the fire to spread so rapidly.

Grenfell United said: “The Ministry of Justice and the government must ensure the courts are properly resourced so that any prosecutions linked to Grenfell are heard swiftly. Justice delayed any further would be unacceptable.”

Anna Girling@annagirling· May 17

Cyril Connolly (quintessential mid-century critic and editor): 'Fascism is the first process by which the cynical few exploit the idealism of the many, by violence and propaganda through the use of a dictator. Its aim is to maintain the status of the rich by using the poor to fight battles... ‪

Cyril Connolly
FASCISM IS THE FIRST PROCESS by which the cynical few exploit the idealism of the many, by violence and propaganda through the use of a dictator.
Its aim is to maintain the status of the rich by using the poor to fight battles. This cannot be done until the whole nation is rendered both warlike and servile. Those who will not make soldiers are not required; those who are not required are eliminated. What we can learn from Spain is the order and extent of that elimination before the stultifying of the human race can proceed. Intellectuals come first, almost before women and children. It is impossible therefore to remain an intellectual and admire Fascism, for that is to admire the intellect's destruction, nor can one remain careless and indifferent. To ignore the present is to condone the future.

Anna Girling@annagirling· May 16

‘events’

Anna Girling@annagirling· May 14

Norman Collins (journalist and Victor Gollancz vice-chair): 'I abhor with all my heart the terrible action of Franco and his supporters, who... are daily adding new horrors to the world's history, and are threatening to submerge Western Europe in the barbarism of the Middle Ages.'

Norman Collins
I ABHOR WITH ALL MY HEART the terrible action of Franco and his supporters, who by their merciless campaign against men, women and children are daily adding new horrors to the world's history, and are threatening to submerge Western Europe in the barbarism of the Middle Ages.

Anna Girling@annagirling· May 1

Langston Hughes's Popular Front bacchanal, 'Chant for May Day' (1938): Be like the flowers... Life is everywhere for you, When the sap of your own strength rises Life is everywhere. May Day!

Chant for May Day
To be read by a Workman with, for background, the rhythmic waves of rising and re-rising Mass Voices, multiplying like the roar of the sea.
WORKER:
10 VOICES:
20 VOICES:
40 VOICES:
50 VOICES:
WORKER:
10 VOICES:
20 VOICES:
40 VOICES:
50 VOICES:
WORKER:
10 VOICES:
10 OTHERS:
10 OTHERS:
10 OTHERS:
50 VOICES:
WORKER:
50 VOICES
10 VOICES:
20 VOICES:
40 VOICES:
50 VOICES:
WORKER:
20 VOICES:
40 VOICES:
60 VOICES:
8o VOICES:
100 VOICES:
The first of May:
When the flowers break through the earth, When the sap rises in the trees, When the birds come back from the South.
Workers:
Be like the flowers,
Bloom in the strength of your unknown power,
Grow out of the passive carth, Grow strong with Union, All hands together-
To beautify this hour, this spring, And all the springs to come Forever for the workers!
Workers:
Be like the sap rising in the trees, Strengthening each branch,
Reaching alece word.
All workers:
White workers, Black workers, Yellow workers,
Workers in the islands of the sea—
Life is everywhere for you,
When the sap of your own strength rises
Life is everywhere.
May Day!
May Day!
May Day!
When the earth is new, Proletarians of all the world:
Arise,
Grow strong, Take Power,
Till the forces of the earth are yours
From this hour.

Anna Girling@annagirling· Apr 26

Is nobody is immune to Frank O'Hara's charms? Here he is allowing the late great J H Prynne to talk seriously about pleasure & fun – and the place of these, with misery & terror, in the dialectical work of poetry: 'the pursuit of fun was a fragile affair... your friends kept falling by the wayside'.

O’Hara loved fun, and he was exceptionally, ironically, estranged from the idea of simple and unquestionable enjoyment. Enjoyment was a kind of task for Frank. He was an extremely moral poet. Very burdened with a sense of obligation and of self-question with regard to the liveliness of life. He was very jocular, and jostled with the possibilities of making fun, and making fun of, being full of satirical wit. And underneath this satirical wit, there was a constant, barely perceptible nibble of melancholia, in the sense that the pursuit of fun was a fragile affair. It kept breaking down, your friends kept falling by the wayside. Your sense of the buoyancy of life was constantly at risk. And this risk was something he was tasked to endure. It was the task of the poet to recognise that this risk was real, and he was prepared to throw the possibility of happiness, and fun, into the risk-play of being a poet. “To Hell with It,” for example, one of O’Hara’s wonderful ode poems, is witty, buoyant, flamboyant, but at the same time, gloomily melancholic. Why should O’Hara, confronted with grief, or sorrow, feel that as a poet he has some duty to write an elegy? No, he had a duty to be happy. A duty to himself, to maintain the buoyancy of poetical happiness. But this sense of inward consistency was always at risk. And he accepted this risk. I think he pursued it. That’s why he was so much better than most of the poets around him, who juggled with playfulness of increasingly imitative kinds.

If you expand your range beyond the experience of friends and family and the joys of nature, happiness is a very fragile idea. Because the world is so full of misery—so full of disaster and destruction, and violence, and vituperative vindictiveness, of political exploitation, of financial insecurity, of the breakdown of trust, and the whole international crisis world of terror and struggles for justice, that it’s not easy to see how a poet can claim any right to be happy, while all this is going on. To be a poet, and to be there in the thick of an important and powerful language, is to be in direct potential communication with every part of the world’s action, including, without doubt, all its misery.

It’s difficult not to be overwhelmed by the sense that language joins you up to the powers of lamentation. At the same time, that’s where the dialectical aspect frequently has its task to perform. Contradiction and oppositional thinking, ironical thinking, has to find a way to juggle up these terms, so that the mood quality, and the emotional, and moral tonalities involved, maintain their power without becoming oppressively single-minded. Single-mindedness is no good to a poet.

He was a great fountainhead of energy. He was a great originator of metrical and prosodic experiment. His poems had terrific brio, and they moved about the page and galvanised the page space. Sometimes he would nearly stop, and then not stop. He was extremely skilled at playing this notion of his own continuity in writing a piece. He wasn’t really writing projective verse in an Olsonian manner, because the Olson manner has a personality projection. Although O’Hara allows a kind of poetic personality to be at stake on the page, it’s a kind of rhetorical projection. We know it’s a plaything, and he’s toying it around with great skill and some degree of abandonment. It doesn’t matter to him if it gets damaged, because he’s got others up his sleeve. “In Memory of My Feelings” has got a whole series of alternative personalities, and when one gets damaged, or lost on the way, he’ll mobilise another. It’s exceptionally virtuosic.

Anna Girling@annagirling· Apr 25

It's wonderful to see this plan to open a new radical bookshop in Newcastle - Books from Below. A worthy successor to (among others) the 1930s People's Bookshop on Westgate Road (home of the northeast committee for British supporters of the International Brigade). Four days left to support!

Blurry image of headed notepaper with this text:

INTERNATIONAL BRIGADE
Dependants and Wounded Aid Committee.
NORTHEAST COMMITTEE.
c/o PEOPLE'S BOOKSHOP.
118, WESTGATE ROAD.
NEWCASTLE-ON.TYNE.

And list of national patrons.

Anna Girling@annagirling· Apr 20

Not to be too Angela Carter, but I think I might really be in love with this young fox who keeps coming to look in through my bedroom window 💔

Anna Girling@annagirling· Apr 17

a tiny consolation to realise that the hated head-bucket currently being worn by my poor beloved dog is actually called an Elizabethan collar!!

Anna Girling@annagirling· Apr 15

Margaret Cole (crime writer): 'The war in Spain, and the actions of Fascist Powers with regard to it, have made it clear to everyone who cares for democracy, liberalism, or culture, that Fascism is determined to wipe these out by every possible means, both of brutal violence and lying propaganda.'

Margaret Cole
THE CAUSE OF THE WAR in Spain, and the actions of Fascist Powers with regard to it, have made it clear to everyone who cares for democracy, liberalism, or culture, that Fascism is determined to wipe these out by every possible means, both of brutal violence and lying propaganda.
Those who doubt should read or listen to the speeches of the rebel generals and their foreign supporters: this should be enough for anyone who cares at all for civilisation.

Anna Girling@annagirling· Apr 8

Norman Cliff (pacifist socialist journalist): 'I am with the common people of Spain in their almost unaided struggle through blood and tears for liberty, decency and civilisation against Fascist tyranny, military insanity and imported savagery.'

Norman Cliff
Foreign Editor, News Chronicle
I AM WITH THE COMMON PEOPLE of Spain in their almost unaided struggle through blood and tears for liberty, decency and civilisation against Fascist tyranny, military insanity and imported savagery.

Anna Girling@annagirling· Apr 7

Hamilton Fyfe (journalist & playwright): 'The fight in Spain is between the forces of freedom, democracy, justice, & the forces of reaction, tyranny, obscurantism... It would be a disaster for all who believe in the right of People to decide own destinies, if Fascism were to win. It must not win!'

Hamilton Fyfe
THAT THE FIGHT IN SPAIN is between the forces of freedom, democracy, justice, and the forces of reaction, tyranny, obscurantism, admits of no doubt. It would be a disaster for all who believe in the right of People to decide for themselves their own destinies, if Fascism were to win.
It must not win !

Anna Girling@annagirling· Apr 3

This goldfish breaking the fourth wall from its bowl with a reflection of a window to the outside world (in James Cadenhead’s 1886 ‘Lady with a Japanese Screen’ at the wonderful Edinburgh City Art Centre) is like a whole modernist novel in one morose fishy gaze.

Anna Girling@annagirling· Mar 30

UCU Edinburgh picketers finding the sun in George Square on the first day of this week‘s strike @ucuedinburgh.bsky.social

Anna Girling@annagirling· Mar 29

Journalist William Forrest: ‘I am a labourer’s son. I am a trade unionist. I am a writer. The labourers of Spain, los pobres y humildes, the trade unionists of Spain, the writers of Spain—all these are my comrades, my brothers. And you ask me where I stand, with them or against them?‘

William Forrest
I AM A LABOURER'S SON. I am a trade unionist. I am a writer. The labourers of Spain, los pobres y humildes, the trade unionists of Spain, the writers of Spain—all these are my comrades, my brothers. And you ask me where I stand, with them or against them? In the name of God!
Suffering, struggling, stoic
People of Spain,
All your split blood heroic
Is not in vain, No, spilt not in vain.

Anna Girling@annagirling· Mar 27

On the one hand, more power to these students, on the other - I am meant to be giving a lecture on The Lonely Londoners in this building this afternoon😞

Anna Girling@annagirling· Mar 27

Ford Madox Ford (!): ’I am unhesitatingly for the existing Spanish Government and against Franco's attempt – on every ground of feeling and reason... The Government of the Spanish should be settled and defined by the inhabitants of that nation. Its success must be contrary to world conscience.’

Ford Madox Ford
I AM UNHESITATINGLY FOR the existing Spanish Government and against Franco's attempt-on every ground of feeling and reason. In addition, as the merest commonsense, the Government of the Spanish, as of any other nation, should be settled and defined by the inhabitants of that nation. Mr. Franco seeks to establish a government resting on the arms of Moors, Germans, Italians. Its success must be contrary to world conscience.

Anna Girling@annagirling· Mar 26

Liam O'Flaherty (author & founder of the Irish Communist Party): ‘As an Irishman I realise that the toiling masses of Spain are waging the same struggle which we have waged for centuries in Ireland against landlordism and foreign Imperialism. Long live the Republic in Spain and all over the earth.’

Liam O' Flaherty

I AM FOR THE LEGAL GOVERNMENT and the people of Republican Spain

against Franco and Fascism. As an Irishman I realise that the toiling

masses of Spain are waging the same struggle which we have waged for

centuries in Ireland against landlordism and foreign Imperialism.

Long live the Republic in Spain and all over the earth.

Anna Girling@annagirling· Mar 25

Sexologist Havelock Ellis: ‘While I recognise that there are good men on both sides, I am myself decisively on the side of the legal Government and against Franco and the Fascists.’

Havelock Ellis
IN REPLY-While I recognise that there are good men on both sides, I am myself decisively on the side of the legal Government and against Franco and the Fascists.

Anna Girling@annagirling· Mar 21

Cedric Dover (naturalist and Indian nationalist): ’The success of Republican Spain would make another revolutionary advance in human progress. It would cripple European Fascism even if it did not kill it. It would encourage those suffering millions who know the yoke of colonial Fascism.’

Cedric Dover
THE SUCCESS OF REPUBLICAN SPAIN would make another revolutionary advance in human progress. It would cripple European Fascism even if it did not kill it. It would encourage those suffering millions who

know the yoke of colonial Fascism. It would inspire the proletariat, the

depressed peoples and the true intellectuals of the world. To support

the Spanish Republic, to share its struggle as intimately as we can, is
therefore an honour and a duty.

Anna Girling@annagirling· Mar 20

Poet Cecil Day Lewis: ’The battle in Spain is… a battle between light and darkness, of which only a blind man could be unaware. Both as a writer and as a member of the Communist Party I am bound to help in the fight against Fascism, which means certain destruction or living death for humanity.’

C. Day Lewis
THE STRUGGLE IN SPAIN is part of a conflict going on now all over the world.
I look upon it quite simply as a battle between light and darkness, of which only a blind man could be unaware. Both as a writer and as a member of the Communist Party I am bound to help in the fight against Fascism, which means certain destruction or living death for humanity.

Anna Girling@annagirling· Mar 19

Nancy Cunard herself (poet, journalist, etc): ‘It is unthinkable for any honest intellectual to be pro-Fascist... Above all others the writer, the intellectual, must take sides. His place is with the people against Fascism; his duty, to protest against the present degeneration of the democracies.’

Nancy Cunard
IT IS AS UNTHINKABLE for any honest intellectual to be pro-Fascist as it is degenerate to be for Franco, the assassin of the Spanish and Arab people.
Spain is not "politics" but life; its immediate future will affect every human who has a sense of what life and its facts mean, who has respect for himself and humanity. Above all others the writer, the intellectual, must take sides. His place is with the people against Fascism; his duty, to protest against the present degeneration of the democracies.

Anna Girling@annagirling· Mar 18

A. J. Cummings (political journalist, editor, essayist): 'Emphatically I am for the Government and People of Spain and against Franco and Fascism. If Fascism wins in Europe all that is worth while in modern civilisation must perish.'

A. J. Cummings
Political Editor, News Chronicle
EMPHATICALLY I AM FOR the Government and People of Spain and against Franco and Fascism. If Fascism wins in Europe all that is worth while in modern civilisation must perish.

Anna Girling@annagirling· Mar 15

W. P. Crozier, celebrated editor of the famously pro-Republican Manchester Guardian: 'I have to make it a rule to express my opinion on political questions through the paper. I am afraid I must keep to my rule in this case also, although I imagine that from the paper my opinions are well known.'

W. P. Crozier

Editor, Manchester Guardian

I HAVE TO MAKE IT A RULE to express my opinion on political questions through the paper. I am afraid I must keep to my rule in this case also, although I imagine that from the paper my opinions are well known.

Anna Girling@annagirling· Mar 13

Brigadier turned pacifist, Frank Crozier: ‘There is only one thing that can save civilisation and that is civilisation. Rating, as I do, Fascism as an anti-social evil I am accordingly opposed thereto. On the other hand, in Communism I detect the hand of Christ.’

The late Brigadier-General Crozier

THERE IS ONLY ONE THING that can save civilisation and that is civilisation.

Rating, as I do, Fascism as an anti-social evil I am accordingly opposed

thereto. On the other hand, in Communism I detect the hand of Christ.

Anna Girling@annagirling· Mar 12

Aleister Crowley, never uncontroversial: ‘Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Franco is a common murderer & pirate: should swing in chains at Execution Dock. Mussolini, the secret assassin, possibly worse. Hitler may prove a "prophet"; time will judge. Love is the law, love under will.’