Leonard Cohen's life and career – in pictures
Following news of the legendary singer-songwriter’s death at the age of 82, we look back on his life and career, which spanned five decades and included such classics as Songs of Love and Hate, The...
View ArticleLeonard Cohen – he knew things about life, and if you listened you could learn
The great musician was a man who used songwriting as a way of making sense of a bewildering worldFull story: Songwriter whose work inspired generations dies at 82Cohen’s life and career – in...
View ArticleLeonard Cohen: see you down the road – video obituary
Legendary singer, poet and novelist Leonard Cohen has died aged 82 at his home in Los Angeles. Born in Québec, Canada, Cohen – who won several literary awards, received the Order of Canada and was...
View ArticleWorld mourns the death of Leonard Cohen – as it happened
Leonard Cohen has died aged 82. Here we round up tributes and reaction as they flood in for Canada’s cultural iconFull story: Songwriter whose work inspired generations dies at 82 Post your tributes in...
View ArticlePoster poems: glass
Both fragile and strong, a mirror and a container – glass shares many properties with good poetry. Share your cracking verse hereLike so many everyday items we take for granted, glass originated in the...
View ArticleMeanwhile, Trees by Mark Waldron review – enough wit to sink a battleship
Playful poems on everything from the dead to the washing up reveal an elegant imagination at workIn A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Theseus offers a famous description of the workings of the poetic...
View ArticleThe Guardian view on Leonard Cohen: art lasts; life doesn’t | Editorial
Poetry is an endless conversation and argument with the dead – the most important talk we’ll ever haveLeonard Cohen once called himself “a ninth-rate practitioner in a great tradition” but he’ll be...
View ArticlePoem of the Week: four Flower Remedies by Katharine Towers
Dodgy science becomes delightful art as allegedly curative plants speak as patients in this TS Eliot prize-shortlisted collectionRock Rosea remedy for terrora remedy for hatred and jealousya remedy for...
View ArticleTranslation Tuesday: Shadow Puppets by Wong Yoon Wah
Several identities are scrutinised in this four-part poem by Malayan-born poet and critic Wong Yoon WahBy Wong Yoon Wah and Theophilus Kwek for Translation Tuesdays by Asymptote, part of the Guardian...
View ArticleDavid Attwooll obituary
My father, David Attwooll, who has died aged 67, was a pioneering publisher, fine drummer and critically acclaimed poet. He was passionate about people and social justice, and he had a visionary belief...
View ArticlePoets' unlikely love letters are turned into critically acclaimed film
Die Geträumten consists of readings from the letters of Ingeborg Bachmann and Paul Celan – daughter of a Nazi and son of JewsShe was the daughter of a Nazi party member, he the only son of parents who...
View ArticleMy Grandmother’s Glass Eye: A Look at Poetry by Craig Raine – a gripping and...
Insight and vendettas in a guide to the right and wrong ways to read a poem“I believe,” says Craig Raine, midway through My Grandmother’s Glass Eye, “that the first and most important question you can...
View ArticleLeonard Cohen is John Donne to Bob Dylan's Shakespeare
Cohen, like Donne, had that rare ability to render the concerns of the mind, body and spirit with equal fidelity in his workThe first time I thought consciously about Leonard Cohen’s death was in 2002....
View ArticleBen Lerner: ‘Being a poet is like saying: I have an important job, and I’m a...
The acclaimed US writer talks about why he finds poetry the most irresistible – if embarrassing - mediumYou recently wrote a monograph, The Hatred of Poetry. To what extent do you, as a poet, hate...
View ArticleThe Last Poets: America in poetry from black power to Black Lives Matter
The Last Poets’ fierce performance poetry inspired generations of musicians, even as they destroyed themselves. Now they’re back – and as relevant as ever“The Last Poets are the microcosm of black...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Meeting Point by Louis MacNeice
Written in a time of ever greater division, this beguiling love poem celebrates two lovers’ almost mystical unionMeeting PointTime was away and somewhere else,There were two glasses and two chairsAnd...
View ArticleBest books of 2016 – part one
From Zadie Smith’s Swing Time to horror in the Highlands and a brief history of tomorrow ... writers choose their best reads of 2016Part two: Rose Tremain, David Nicholls and others share their...
View ArticlePhoebe Waller-Bridge meets Kate Tempest: ‘Fleabag said how I was feeling...
The actor-writer and the poet-novelist talk writing, TV and speaking for a generationPhoebe Waller-Bridge and Kate Tempest have met before, as you might expect of two London-based artists both born in...
View ArticleVerse goes viral: how young feminist writers are reclaiming poetry for the...
Fusing writing, music, art and technology, a new generation is taking poetry beyond the bookstoreIf you’re not an Instagrammer you may never have heard of Rupi Kaur. In fact, if you’re not a young...
View ArticleBest books of 2016 – part two
Paula Hawkins reflects on guilt, Jackie Kay seeks hope post-Brexit, and David Nicholls is lured into the lonely city … writers pick their best books of 2016Part one: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Julian...
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