Translation Tuesday: Poems for Michael Jordan by Francisco Ide Wolleter
Chilean writer Wolleter presents a selection of poems on observing the movements and grace of US basketballer Michael Jordan while in playBy Francisco Ide Wolleter and Tim Benjamin for Translation...
View ArticleRuth Padel and Lucinda Hawksley – books podcast
Poetry and poison combine as we look at a lavishly illustrated history of arsenic in the home and a book-length Christmas poem Christmas is a time for beautiful books and we have two on this podcast....
View ArticleLemn Sissay: ‘Everything in life is connected, and everything is connected to...
The poet grew up in children’s homes and never knew a real Christmas. Now, he makes sure hundreds of care leavers feast in style each year. How – and why – does he do it?Christmas, says the poet Lemn...
View ArticleThe King of Christmas
A new Christmas poem by Carol Ann DuffyIllustrations by Lara HawthorneBored, the Baron mooched in his Manor on the brink of belligerence. Life lacked glamour and Christmas was coming. The Baroness,...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Jolly Jankin by Anonymous
Blending the language of high mass with ribald vernacular, this mischievous carol is melodious even without the music that would once have accompanied itJolly Jankin‘Kyrie’, so ‘kyrie’,Jankin syngeth...
View ArticleJohn Montague obituary
Prolific poet, writer and translator inspired by his Irish homelandThose who enjoy the Chieftains may not realise that the band took their name from a collection of short stories, Death of a Chieftain...
View ArticleA new year that changed me: my partner said I would publish a book – so I had...
After the new year announcement to friends, I panicked and suffered writer’s block. It was broken by an absurd dream about rare cheeseSixteen years ago, long before there was any prospect of my work...
View ArticleReaders’ books of the year 2016
Writers and critics have had their say, now readers pick their books of the year – from Brexit to bohemians, emperors to existentialistsOf the many books that have engaged me this year, three stand...
View ArticleOdes to hope (and techno): poems to get you going again
Need a shot of a something powerful to launch you into 2017? Poet Carol Rumens introduces 10 irresistible poems about everything from collapsing beds to birds singing in stormsMore uplifting culture...
View ArticleRichard Baker obituary
My husband Richard Baker, who has died aged 66 of cancer, was a sailor, museum attendant, writer and gardener and, for more than 30 years, lead builder of the Skinningrove bonfire, east...
View ArticleWatership Down was no utopia for the does | Brief letters
Guardian letter-writers | Moral values in Watership Down | Grimsby church | Cheesy poetryTrevor Masters (Reasons to be cheerful about the world in 2016, Letters, 31 December) thanks the Guardian for...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Italy to Lord by Jane Draycott
This gentle, subtle reflection on a child’s-eye view of an encyclopedia’s exotic secrets is also a vision of a lost worldItaly to LordIt’s dark in here and forest green: Britannica,sixteen oak trees in...
View ArticleJohn Berger obituary
Critic whose TV series Ways of Seeing posed questions about art and society, and a writer whose fiction reflected his life in rural FranceThe art critic, essayist and novelist John Berger threw down...
View ArticleToadstools in a Shrewsbury graveyard
Shrewsbury We walked to the grave of Mary Webb and found the fungi growing around her neighbours’ headstonesThe toadstools opened from the graveyard like fleshy satellite dishes – ears of the...
View ArticleThe Last Poets – books podcast
Famed for militant spoken-word poetry about black America from the height of the civil rights struggle, the Last Poets join us to perform and talk about their own battlesCelebrated for their eloquent...
View ArticleJohn Fuller: ‘I feel in my heart quite radical, but powerless to do anything...
As the poet and novelist turns 80, he muses on mortality, the Beats and open mic evenings John Fuller’s house is deceptive. It sits at the end of a quiet street in north Oxford, whose broad, leafy...
View ArticlePoetic injustice and literary look aheads | Letters
Thank you for telling us once again which books we need to read over the next 12 months (Book ahead, Review, 7 January). But how do you know? Presumably no one at the Guardian has read all these books,...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Daughters of the Dust by Rhiannon Hooson
Moving beyond ordinary travel writing, this conjuring of the Mongolian steppe brings the reader a sharp sense of intimacy with what might seem very ‘other’Daughters of the DustThere can be no mermaids...
View ArticleTranslation Tuesday: The War is Coming by Jazra Khaleed
Chechnya-born Greek poet Jazra Khaleed’s sobering poem laments the death and chaos of the Syrian war, documenting his experience in the country where there is ‘one grave for every thousand corpses, one...
View ArticleFound in translation: the English-language writers who succeed abroad
Authors Donna Leon, Laura Kasischke and Simon Beckett ponder the happy mysteries of scoring hits with foreign-language readersFor the American writer Laura Kasischke, the first inkling of her second...
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