It’s not often that a letter is sent to a national newspaper in the form of a poem – even when it’s from a poet. But Blake Morrison chose to do so in a letter headed  ‘A compilation of terrorists’ – it’s also the title of the poem - that was published in the Guardian.

In it Morrison lists people down the ages who implicitly could have fallen foul of new anti-terrorist legislation, and could have been labelled terrorists, just for protesting – from Nelson Mandela and John Lennon, to Martin Luther King and Emily Davison. Wat Tyler, Joan of Arc, and Robin Hood are there in the mix, too.

A day later a letter writer said in reply: “Wow! Blake Morrison’s compilation of terrorists (Letters, 18 July) is the most powerful letter I have ever seen in my 60 years of reading the Guardian. I just hope that those who could make a difference will read it.”  

Blake Morrison is a writer and journalist. His poetry collections include Dark Glasses, winner of a Somerset Maugham award. Since 2003, he has been professor of creative and life writing at Goldsmiths College, University of London. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

You can read Blake Morrison’s poem in full here

PHOTOGRAPH: GREG FREEMAN / WRITE OUT LOUD