Alan McGuire

Alan McGuire is a poet, writer, English teacher, and founder of The Sobremesa Podcast, and serves as an Associate Editor at Culture Matters. His work blends class politics, culture, and place-based storytelling across page, mic, and screen.

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About

Alan McGuire is a poet, writer, podcaster, and English teacher from Swindon, Wiltshire, who has lived in Madrid, Spain, for the past decade. Active in trade union and cultural organising, he serves as an Associate Editor at Culture Matters, where he contributes to shaping working-class and politically engaged arts writing. He is the series editor for the Our Culture series.He has been teaching English for over ten years and has written for a wide range of publications, including The Huffington Post, Culture Matters, Madrid No Frills, The Local, The Morning Star, Leganés Activo, Naked Madrid, and The Madrid Review.His debut poetry pamphlet, The Last Days of Alicante, was published in 2025, exploring the scars of the Spanish Civil War and the legacy of Miguel Hernández. His latest poetry collection Our England challenges nationalistic nostalgia while expressing hope in a future found in the people around us.Alan also hosts The Sobremesa Podcast, where he examines contemporary Spain through politics, culture, and history.

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The Last Days of Alicante

The Last Days of Alicante, published by Culture Matters, is a poetry pamphlet exploring the city’s scars from the Spanish Civil War, the refugee crisis that followed, and the life and legacy of Miguel Hernández. It blends history, memory, and place into a reflective and politically grounded collection.Praise for The Last Days of Alicante:"This is a set of accessible poems and the poet goes for plain language and short lines in most of them. McGuire has settled in Alicante after living in Britain, and this is a good way to understand what it might be like, a million miles from the usual expats-in-the sun."
Ruth Aylett - Morning Star"The ghost of Hernández and his comrades live again in these poems and photographs from the first poetry collection by McGuire. It is to be hoped it will not be his last."
Jim Aitken - Poet"The past is never far away in this debut collection. There are tender love poems mixed with snapshots of Spanish life – a cup of coffee in a bar, a sudden downpour, adoration of the Virgin at a fiesta, children playing in a plaza, the bustle of a restaurant. But the most powerful poems are those in which McGuire conjures up the tragic events of the last century. The title of the collection is a clue to one of them."
Jim Jump - IBMT"Alan McGuire’s powerful first collection shows that poetry can make connections between past and present, can show that the malignancies of fascism are always skulking around, searching out working-class dissatisfaction and turning it against itself, looking for a rebirth. Vigilance is essential; recognising that the past, as Faulkner had it, is never past, is crucial. And always, as Fran Lock puts it in her excellent introduction, as a description of McGuire’s practice, looking to ‘reintegrate political theory into ordinary life in accessible and vigorous ways…’ and arguing for ‘the urgency and seriousness of living.’"
Nick Moss - Poet

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