To mark the 40th anniversary of the Miners’ Strike, The Poetry Business has worked with the poet Sarah Wimbush, author of STRIKE (Stairwell Books, 2024), and the National Coal Mining Museum for England to produce an anthology of poetry and other creative responses that encompass the years leading up to the strike, the strike itself, and its aftermath.
The anthology includes work from established poets, including Ian McMillan, Gillian Clarke and Paul Bentley, alongside new voices and younger poets writing about communities affected by the resulting pit closures. Work by the photographers John Harris, Keith Pattison and Ken Wilkinson, who captured some of the most powerful and moving images of the strike, is also included in the anthology.
Throughout 2024, The Poetry Business and the NCMME worked with a number of poets from the North of England and from Wales to run a series of workshops that encouraged participants nationwide to develop their own creative responses to the anniversary of the strike, and some of these are included in the anthology.
The COAL anthology is accompanied by an expanded online anthology, which includes further poems and reflections on this period of British history and its continuing impact.