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The Saturday poem: Shakespeare
By Carol Ann DuffySmall Latin and less Greek, all English yours,dear lad, local, word-blessed, language loved best;the living human music on our tongues,young, old, who we were or will be, history's...
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Poem of the week: Musk-Ox by Jane Yeh
With careful observation animated by bright metaphor, this nature study is quite unafraid of anthropomorphismThis week's poem, "Musk-Ox", is from Jane Yeh's second collection, The Ninjas, recently...
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Linton Kwesi Johnson wins Golden PEN award
Pioneering 'dub poet' joins previous winners including Harold Pinter, JG Ballard and Doris LessingFather of dub poetry Linton Kwesi Johnson will join names including Harold Pinter, JG Ballard and Doris...
View ArticleGuardian Artangel Books podcast: Adonis in A Room for London
In the latest dispatch from A Room for London – a hotel installation in the shape of the boat in Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness– we hear from Syrian poet and perennial Nobel contender...
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Open thread: recommend your favourite short stories and poetry collections
Tell us which mini masterpieces you'd choose to calm Christmas nerves'Tis the season to be stressy - and while the pages of Bleak House or Middlemarch might seem the ideal refuge, it's hard for most of...
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Poster poems: December
As the northern nights draw in, we come to the end of the posters poems year-in-verse. In your final poem, write about the aspect of December - snowy fields or slushy streets, warm beds or Christmas -...
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My hero: Charles Baudelaire by Roberto Calasso
'Even when he is most harrowing, he gives pleasure'When you feel exhausted and rather gloomy, the best thing to do is to lie down and open a book, just to make your mind wander somewhere else. In that...
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The Saturday poem: December 1991
By David HareShe drove me to Trouville in her black Volkswagen droptopLeaving Paris early by the Peripherique and getting there by noonThere was frost even on the inside of the slanted back windowAnd...
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Shakespeare, but not as we know it
From raps to apps, the Bard is being reimagined for the digital ageThe World of Shakespeare festival is just drawing to a close, but its digital offspring will hopefully be with us for some time. The...
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Poem of the week: Starfish by John Wedgwood Clarke
This ode to the mysterious sea creature is as a much heartfelt homage as it is a grisly lesson in marine biologyIt may be the season of advent, but the "star of wonder" described in this week's poem –...
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Darkness in literature: Kathleen Jamie's Darkness and Light
This December, our seasonal reading series will concentrate on the theme of darkness in literature, beginning with a poet's search for 'starry dark' and solstice lightDuring the long days of summer,...
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What makes funny man Michael Rosen overwhelmingly melancholy
Michael Rosen's Sad Book, written after the death of his son, deals with spiritual darkness - but its devastating conclusion is also curiously upliftingI was having dinner with friends when someone...
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Reader reviews roundup
Crime stalks the Shetland Islands, while questions of identity are examined through a very different lens in this week's roundup of reader reviews"When precocious teenager Catherine Ross is found...
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The Saturday poem: Doll's House
By Jacob PolleyA table set with tiny plates,the chairs around a paper fire:diminishment has simplifiedthe aims and objects of desire,while blinder faith must still providethe mincemeat in the wooden...
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The Customs House by Andrew Motion – review
David Morley on Andrew Motion's humbling, melancholic collectionReading Andrew Motion's lucid, brilliant, melancholic poetry collection The Customs House I was reminded of Edward Thomas's moodily...
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Thomas Wyatt: The Heart's Forest by Susan Bridgen - review
Thomas Penn on a life of the supreme English wordsmith of his ageIn winter 1541 Thomas Wyatt, imprisoned in the Tower on charges of high treason, was awaiting judgment. For anybody ambitious or unlucky...
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Poem of the week: An Arab Love-Song by Francis Thompson
This intense and erotic lyric by a Victorian Englishman, set in an Arabia of the mind, may not be 'authentic' but its power is stunningThis week's poem is "An Arab Love-Song", by Francis Thompson...
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James Franco to publish book of poetry
Actor and director's debut poetry collection, Directing Herbert White, will deal with 'successes and failures within Hollywood'Not content with conquering the acting world, the musical world, the...
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Emma Thompson wins Effie lawsuit
Film about love triangle between John Ruskin, Effie Gray and John Everett Millais to go ahead after US court clears Thompson of plagiarismEmma Thompson has won a landmark US ruling allowing her to move...
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Betty Mulcahy obituary
My friend Betty Mulcahy, who has died aged 92, was an acclaimed verse reading artist, broadcaster, writer and educator.Born in Slough, Berkshire, to Stanley Upton, a shoemaker for Eton college, and his...
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