In his fourth collection of poems Mike Jenkins addresses issues of the greatest concern to us in the nineties. His subjects include South Africa, Chile, the Falklands War, Northern Ireland, economic dereliction, the environment and sexual oppression. The ’dissident voice’ of the title belongs to anti-nuclear campaigner Hilda Murrell, who died in such mysterious circumstances.

Mike Jenkins’s poetry of issues is also a poetry of ordinary people. Often writing in character, he brings vividly to life the problems and dilemmas which face us daily. Through the rich imagery of these poems we come to see the human values and rights which we must exercise and defend in a civilised society.