Best Australian books out in October: Magda Szubanski, delicious recipes and...
Each month Guardian Australia editors and critics pick the upcoming titles they have devoured – or can’t wait to get their hands on***Continue reading...
View ArticleJohn Cooper Clarke looks back: ‘Getting older sucks – it’s marginally better...
The punk poet on his heroin years, dressing like Ronnie Wood, and achieving his boyhood ambitionBorn in Salford in 1949, John Cooper Clarke is a poet and author. He cut his teeth in the clubs of...
View ArticleThe best recent poetry – review roundup
Have It by John Cooper Clarke; The Dodo Stories by Mary Mulholland; Red River Valley by Ian McMillan; Some Sacred Harbour by Roger Robinson; Otherwhere by Carolyn ForchéHave It by John Cooper Clarke...
View ArticleRhapsody: A Manifesto by Alice Oswald review – a history of the spoken word,...
A twisting, beguiling investigation into the art of poetry that ends in a call to arms on behalf of the natural worldThe poet Alice Oswald is no stranger to thinking in public about her art. She was...
View ArticleDominic West backs ‘top shagger’ Byron in poetry battle with Bob Geldof
Actor hails ‘proto-rock star’ as best poet, while musician argues for ‘Ireland’s Shakespeare’ WB Yeats at Somerset festivalDominic West has said Lord Byron is his favourite poet because he was a “top...
View Article‘She went to her studio every day and no one was allowed near it’: the...
Her father was Laurie Lee, her mother the bohemian Lorna Garman, and the full extent of her talent wasn’t apparent until after her death. A revelatory exhibition places David at the heart of British...
View ArticleRobin Morgan obituary
Political theorist and one of the first feminists of her generation to point out the misogyny within male leftist countercultureThe poet, novelist and political theorist Robin Morgan, who has died aged...
View ArticleTina McKenzie obituary
My mother, Tina McKenzie, who has died aged 99, was an artist whose role as a diplomat’s wife led to her living all over the world during profound political and social change.She arrived in India with...
View ArticleDoom, gloom and GCSE English | Letter
The set books for English literature GCSE make grim reading, says Rachel StottHollie McNish makes a strong point about the content of the current GCSE English literature syllabus (‘Bold, brilliant,...
View ArticleBlake’s townhouse could be open to all | Letters
Directors of the William Blake Congregation respond to an editorial and a letter about writers’ homesWe were pleased to see your editorial about writers’ houses (18 August), and the response from...
View ArticleThe best recent poetry – review roundup
Fetch by Colin Bramwell; Girling by Eve Esfandiari-Denney; The Dead One, The Unconscious One, Thundering in Your Ear, Thriving Slumber by Jay Gao; Belling the Leopard by Clementine Ewokolo Burnley; The...
View ArticleKevin Powers: ‘I was ready to abandon Infinite Jest a thousand times’
The American author on falling in love with The Great Gatsby, being inspired by Dylan Thomas – and the memoir of a canoe trip in Texas he comes back toMy earliest reading memoryThe deaths of Old Dan...
View ArticleWhen does rage help us, and when does it harm us? Ukraine has taught me the...
Fury at Russia’s death and destruction has fuelled art, action and resistance. But eventually, rage’s fire is all-consumingTwice, I have heard Ukrainians perform Verdi’s Requiem. Once in Lviv, last...
View ArticleNew Cemetery by Simon Armitage audiobook review – the poet laureate’s...
The building of a cemetery during the pandemic inspires the Huddersfield-born author to reflect on childhood memories and the changing local landscapeWhen Huddersfield council proposed turning some...
View ArticleLate Fame review – Willem Dafoe superb as ever as twilight-years bohemian...
Adaptation of an Arthur Schnitzler novella sees Dafoe’s ageing poet embraced by a younger cohort of capricious hipsters. It’s smart, literate and affectingThere’s a marvellous tenderness and generosity...
View ArticleWriters’ homes are sites of resistance and renewal | Letter
David Devanny on the challenges in running the late poet Charles Causley’s home in Launceston, Cornwall In response to your letters on preserving writers’ homes (25 August) Cyprus Well was the cottage...
View ArticleEmily Wilson to retranslate the Odyssey from scratch
Writer who criticised Christopher Nolan film based on her 2017 translation is working on new version of Homer’s poemEmily Wilson, the first woman to translate Homer’s Odyssey into English, is to...
View ArticleWendell Berry, US author, farmer and environmentalist, dies aged 92
Author and Kentucky native, who celebrated the farming world of his home state and warned of the excesses of industrial society, died at homeWendell Berry, the Kentucky-born author and agrarian whose...
View ArticleA poem by Troy Wong: ‘My djungelskog is my role model for an alternative...
Each week during Australian Poetry Month, a poet walks us through one of their works. Here, Wong shares how his floppy Ikea stuffie is a role model for a softer, more vulnerable identityNo formal...
View ArticleA poem by Jan Fran: ‘Write it down, they say. You’ll feel better. But how to...
Each week during Australian Poetry Month, a poet walks us through one of their works. Here, the journalist grapples with raising a child in a time of ‘tremendous helplessness’The question I ask myself...
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