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Review Christmas quiz 2012: the answers
How did you do? Here are the answers to the fiendish quizJohn Banville: 1 Rainer Maria Rilke, in the opening lines of the Duino Elegies.2 Lolita, on the first page of Vladimir Nabokov's novel. 3 Philip...
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Wenceslas
A Christmas poem by Carol Ann DuffyThe King's Cook had cooked for the King a Christmas Pie,wherein the Swan,once bride of the river,half of for ever,six Cygnets circling her,lay scalded, plucked,...
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The Seacunny by Gerard Woodward – review
Gerard Woodward's latest poetry collection has a rare mix of beauty, clarity and witA "seacunny" – in case you did not know – is "a helmsman in vessels manned by Lascars in the East India Trade". And...
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Poem of the week: Christmas at Sea by Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson telescopes the distance between a cosy Christmas scene and a life-and-death struggle on the high seasBorn in Edinburgh in 1850, Robert Louis Stevenson was the son of a...
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Benjamin Zephaniah: 'There isn't enough anger in politics'
Benjamin Zephaniah started out reciting poems at punk gigs. Now he's one of our best-loved poets, and will guest edit Radio 4's Today next week. Brace yourselves, he's got plenty to sayWhen Benjamin...
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La Folie Baudelaire by Roberto Calasso, translated by Alastair McEwen - review
Alex Danchev is dazzled by Roberto Calasso's meditations on BaudelaireRoberto Calasso takes his cue from Sainte-Beuve: "M Baudelaire has found a way to construct, at the extremities of a strip of land...
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The Saturday poem: Compartment
By Richard PriceWhen the girls all shook a coke to pass aroundI saw my daughter find a lifelong friendfor half an hour – all, surely, Katie's age.Hopeful look, touch of hand; rare common ground."It's...
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Unsent: New and Selected Poems 1980-2012 by Penelope Shuttle - review
Sean O'Brien enjoys an earthy collection of beauty and bereavementIn the title poem of Taxing the Rain (1992), Penelope Shuttle wrote: "When I wake the rain's falling / and I think, as always, it's for...
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Your books of the year
From history to fiction, politics to poetry, Guardian readers pick their favourite reads of 2012Timothy Adès LondonMy best new books are: Victor Hugo, How to be a Grandfather, the Complete Edition,...
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Poem of the week: Breathless by Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi
This brief, beautiful love poem captures the sense of expectation with which we greet a new yearThis week's poem, and one to welcome in the new year, is "Breathless" by the Sudanese poet Al-Saddiq...
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Which books will win the 2012 Costa prizes?
It's the Costa category prizes tonight. Will a comic beat Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies as novel of the year? And who should win the biography and poetry awards?Scarcely have the first-footers...
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My hero: Dennis O'Driscoll by Seamus Heaney
'Dennis was beloved by his friends for his originality as a poet and his courage and merriment as a man'Early on he wrote to Enid Blyton and WH Auden and received replies from both. In later years he...
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Swedish Academy reopens controversy surrounding Steinbeck's Nobel prize
Archives reveal that John Steinbeck, who beat Robert Graves and Lawrence Durrell to the Nobel laureateship in 1962, was a compromise choiceGiant of American letters John Steinbeck beat the British...
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Jayne Cortez obituary
Poet whose incantatory performances could be militant, lyrical and surrealThe poet Jayne Cortez, who has died aged 78, was unambiguous about her craft: "Words are musical – there's nothing more to say...
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Dennis O'Driscoll obituary
Poet with a direct style that stood out among fellow Irish writersIn an age when poets tend to hover near schools and universities, Dennis O'Driscoll, who has died suddenly aged 58, was an exception....
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The Havocs by Jacob Polley – review
Ben Wilkinson explores a poet committed to his nightmares"Who says havoc is a vice of the young?" asks the speaker in the title poem of Jacob Polley's third collection, The Havocs, which has been...
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Nick Laird: a life in writing
'I would drive through Moy, the venue of many of Paul Muldoon's poems, every Saturday on the way to visit my granny'The oldest poem in the 1,100 pages of the 2010 Penguin Book of Irish Poetry is an...
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Sharon Olds: 'I want a poem to be useful'
The celebrated American poet on her abusive childhood, the end of her marriage and writing about painSharon Olds has the wrong surname. At 70, you can see the young woman in Olds – in the sweep of her...
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Poem of the week: The Shortness of Life by Francis Quarles
From a writer known for his pious themes, these verses offer an appealingly mundane view of time's passingThe Protestant poet, Francis Quarles, by his own description was an "Essex quill". He was born...
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