Unreconciled by Michel Houellebecq review – perfectly suited to the age of Trump
Laughter is in short supply in this collection from France’s great satirist and contrarianHaving missed out on the 1930s, Michel Houellebecq is perfectly suited to the age of Trump. The war of...
View ArticleDirt by William Letford review – seriously funny
William Letford’s second collection of poems is bleak, profound and hilarious, sometimes all at onceWilliam Letford belongs in the grand – and humble – tradition of Robert Burns. He has heart, a...
View ArticlePoem of the week: The Attraction by John Riley
From the last years of the 60s, this is a startlingly even-handed depiction of personal and social promise – and its inevitable dangers The attraction of well-washed hands and young words.Hands eyes...
View Article2016 TS Eliot prize won by Jacob Polley's 'firecracker of a book'
Jackself, described by chair of judges Ruth Padel as ‘incredibly inventive and very moving’, takes prestigious £20,000 honourJacob Polley has won the 2016 TS Eliot prize with Jackself, a collection...
View ArticleTranslation Tuesday: Two poems by Shubham Shree
Indian poet Shubham Shree – who recently caused controversy with her bold use of slang and English words, considered a desecration of the tradition of Hindi poetry – presents two poems, about...
View ArticleBarack Obama: a celebration in verse | Ben Okri
With Donald Trump about to enter the White House, a poet celebrates the achievements of the outgoing presidentSometimes the world is not changedTill the right person appears who canChange it. But the...
View ArticleWhat Must Happen by Jeffrey Wainwright review – seeking human traces in the...
Methodists and Marxists, art and aspiration in a powerful and austere collectionJeffrey Wainwright’s work is among the most interesting of any poet now writing. Although he has an admiring readership,...
View ArticleJacob Polley: ‘If I’m writing a poem, I should be kept busy doing anything...
The TS Eliot prize winner on distractions, idleness and the art of forgettingRead Every Creeping Thing by Jacob PolleyWhen my days were all nearly all my own, I used to keep to a routine. Turn up at...
View ArticleThe Saturday poem: Every Creeping Thing
by Jacob PolleyBy leech, by water miteby the snail on its slick of light by the mercury wires of the spiders’ lyresand the great sound-hole of the nightBy the wet socket of a levered stoneby a...
View ArticleUnreconciled: Poems 1991-2013 by Michel Houellebecq – digested read
‘The first time I made love / Was on a Greek beach. At sunset / The girl ran off / Saying I was a useless shag’I went on holiday with my 10-year-old sonWe stayed in a shitty hostel in the Alps.It...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Slow Food by Thomas McCarthy
An Irish poet looks back, past the snobbish abundance of his country’s recently upended boom years, to the appalling suffering of the Great FamineSlow FoodI would like to feed this child who is dying...
View ArticleAnthony Cronin obituary
Poet, critic and columnist who was Ireland’s most prominent man of letters for more than half a centuryWhen Charles Haughey became taoiseach in 1979, one of his priorities was to repair the fraught...
View ArticleTranslation Tuesday: Three poems by Choi Seung-ja
Existential despair and dreamlike descriptions of nature abound in these poems by fierce feminist and iconic Korean poet Choi Seung-jaBy Choi Seung-ja and Lei Kim for Translation Tuesdays by Asymptote,...
View ArticleBurns night: the battle over Scottish identity continues
In 1950s and 60s Edinburgh, the Rose Street poets led a Scottish renaissance that kindled today’s independence movement. Language remains at the heart of the debate todayPoetry makes nothing happen,...
View ArticleBurns Night celebrates the wrong Scottish poet
The bard honoured on 25 January was a fine writer, but he also treated women appallingly. I can think of at least one other Scots author more worthy of a national festivalAt this time of year, with one...
View ArticleDirty Great Love Story review – the ideal show for apprehensive first dates
Arts theatre, LondonRichard Marsh and Katie Bonna’s verse romcom is a wry, sweet-natured account of a totally believable relationshipHaving started out as a 10-minute pub poetry duet in 2010, Dirty...
View ArticleThe Saturday poem: Kneeling Shepherd i.m. David Miller
by Max Porter(Wheredyu go? I fancied a chat)I went looking for the Rubens Adoration,could smell those toes down the hallway,Stella burps, leathery effort, strain.Perfect description, immaculate clause,...
View ArticleOn my radar: Jacob Polley’s cultural highlights
The poet on Claudia Rankine’s dissection of US race relations, the lasting power of Tindersticks and the joys of public librariesBorn in Cumbria in 1975, Jacob Polley grew up on the edge of the Solway...
View ArticlePoem of the week: To a Fair Lady, Playing With a Snake by Edmund Waller
Written by a distinctly slithery character, this playful courtship poem is nonetheless an entertaining – and satisfyingly allusive – pastoralTo a Fair Lady, Playing With a SnakeStrange! that such...
View ArticleTranslation Tuesday: two prose poems by Ghayath Almadhoun
Grief and death are explored in these two poems by the Syrian-born poet Ghayath AlmadhounBy Ghayath Almadhoun and Catherine Cobham for Translation Tuesdays by Asymptote, part of theGuardian Books...
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