Rare JRR Tolkien poem The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun to be republished
Early version of Galadriel in The Lord of the Rings can be seen in this take on a medieval Breton ballad, out of print for 70 yearsA poem “from the darker side of JRR Tolkien’s imagination”, which...
View ArticleJohn Cooper Clarke: polymath, renaissance man and true enigma
As the punk-rock poet releases a single with Hugh Cornwell, Dave Simpson celebrates the Salford Sinatra and social commentator adored by Alex Turner John Cooper Clarke is most often described as a...
View ArticleHousman Country: Into the Heart of England by Peter Parker review – the...
The poet AE Housman, author of ‘A Shropshire Lad’, is associated with a certain kind of English nostalgia, but the truth is more complicated, argues this fine and wide-ranging studyIt’s easy to see why...
View ArticleThe Saturday Poem: The Penelopes
by Penelope ShuttleI saw The Penelopespainted and namedbut not shamedon a brick wallalong Calvert Street,Banksy-esqueI guess,unsigned urban art,two young womenon horseback,en-face.Though I had my...
View ArticleKate Clanchy showed me that it’s still possible to be proud to be British |...
Among all the fevered speculation about Brexit and the ever-continuing media speculation, I picked up Kate Clanchy’s long read (The Very Quiet Foreign Girls poetry group, 14 July). I couldn’t put it...
View ArticlePoem of the week: The Snake Goddess of Crete by Geraldine Monk
With churning rhythms, this poem alludes to geopolitical turmoil and speaks of longing for ‘kinder’ powers to rule our worldThe Snake Goddess of CreteI cannot grasp your high status apron(your pretty...
View ArticleRobert Nye obituary
Author, poet and critic whose novel Falstaff won the Guardian fiction prize and the HawthorndenRobert Nye’s novel Falstaff, purportedly the memoirs of Shakespeare’s Sir John Falstaff dictated in 1459...
View ArticleAndrea Leadsom winging it on the environment | Brief letters
Butterflies | AE Housman | Melania Trump | Beards | Wendy SlyIt looks like Andrea Leadsom is unconcerned that her children’s children may never see a butterfly unless they climb a mountain (Leadsom’s...
View ArticleUnpublished Charlotte Brontë writings return to Haworth in mother's book
Brontë Society secures treasured heirloom belonging to the sisters’ mother, with letters, poems and short stories by family members tucked insideA book containing unpublished work by Charlotte Brontë –...
View ArticleA member's view: 'What would a poet be doing in a steel mill?'
Former photojournalist Ian Yeomans attended a Guardian talk in which poet Ian McMillan and photographer Ian Beesley discussed their lastest collaborationI’m a new resident of Manchester and I am still...
View ArticleCentres of Cataclysm review – 50 years of Modern Poetry in Translation
Edited by Sasha Dugdale and David & Helen Constantine, this anthology illustrates that Ted Hughes’s magazine is still invaluableSelected by distinguished previous and current editors, this ample...
View ArticleCatching the zeitgeist with Eileen Myles, Martin MacInnes and Idra Novey
Fragilities of language and identity feature in edgy new works from two debut novelists and ‘the rock star of modern poetry’ In this week’s podcast we trace the influence of the zeitgeist, as...
View ArticleThe Saturday Poem: On Standby
by Carol RumensPass me that small pencil, sharpened nicelyAt both ends, a pencil with two eyes,And up for anything – a screed, a scribble.The gold and navy stripes, still visible, Might be school...
View ArticleOn my radar: Ruby Tandoh’s cultural highlights
The cook and food writer on Siri Hustvedt’s What I Loved, Greta Gerwig in Maggie’s Plan and Zoe Adjonyoh’s Ghanaian pop-upRuby Tandoh grew up in Southend, Essex, and at the age of 20, while studying...
View ArticleFalling Awake by Alice Oswald review – encounters with nature that defy language
The poet’s seventh collection is a revelation – everything is on her radarAlice Oswald pulls off a feat in her seventh collection: she finds words for encounters with nature that ordinarily defy...
View ArticleLetter: Sir Geoffrey Hill obituary
The view thatGeoffrey Hill had from his childhood home in Worcestershire, west towards Wales, was almost exactly the prospect enjoyed by his fellow poet and son of Bromsgrove, AE Housman, when he was a...
View ArticleLeland Bardwell obituary
Irish poet and writer of the novels Girl on a Bicycle and The House, she lived a bohemian life in London and DublinThe Irish poet and novelist Leland Bardwell, who has died aged 94, realised from...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Neighbour by Iain Crichton Smith
Disdaining the artificial barriers between people, these verses celebrate the nature that ignores these lines, and the joys and sorrows that unite usNeighbourBuild me a bridge over the streamto my...
View ArticleIf I’m Scared We Can’t Win: Penguin Modern Poets One review – a welcome return
In Emily Berry, Anne Carson and Sophie Collins, Penguin has showcased three funny, playful and creative writersGetting people to read good contemporary poetry is never easy, but in 1962 Penguin cracked...
View ArticlePoetic justice: the rise of brilliant women writing in dark times | Rhiannon...
Millions are turning to poetry in response to a year of troubling news stories – with previously excluded voices in the field now going viral“Hera Lindsay Bird has attracted the biggest hoo-ha with a...
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