Unseen Sylvia Plath poems deciphered in carbon paper
Duplicating sheet in old notebook examined by academics yields two unknown works, To a Refractory Santa Claus and MegrimsA carbon paper hidden in the back of an old notebook owned by Sylvia Plath has...
View ArticleWe are Leeds: slam poet Zodwa Nyoni's shout-out to Yorkshire's young voices
The Zimbabwe-born writer found her passion for words as a teenager in Yorkshire. Her new play, Ode to Leeds, explores its in-your-face poetry sceneHome is a complicated idea. The Yorkshire-based poet...
View ArticleTony Walsh’s poem found words where there are no words | Jeanette Winterson
The poet’s appearance at the vigil for the Manchester bombing victims helped us face up to the tragedyTony Walsh’s poem, “This Is The Place”, rapped out by him in fierce lines at Tuesday’s vigil in...
View ArticleThe Saturday poem: Dear Felix
by Jackie KayHere you are Felix, looking into the future You never got to have,Your mum smiling at your side,Your dark brown eyes, warm, kind.Here you are again, Felix,Coming into empty rooms,Filling...
View ArticleFrom social media star to bestselling writer, the young ‘Instapoet’
Rupi Kaur’s first book, Milk and Honey, sold 1.4 million copies. Here, she tells how Instagram helped her find her young, female audienceOrdinarily, the illustration adorning the cover of a new book is...
View ArticlePoem of the week: It Will Make a Fine Hospital by Andrew Dimitri
Drawing on firsthand experience of war zones, Dimitri laconically balances awareness of their appalling damage with hope for the futureIt Will Make a Fine Hospital(from Winter in Northern Iraq)I had...
View Article'What a hole': Hull has embraced Philip Larkin – but did the love go both ways?
Hull continues to put Larkin on a pedestal during its year as City of Culture even though the poet called the city a fish-smelling ‘dump’. Is Larkinmania misplaced?Statues in stations were once all...
View ArticleMichael Longley wins PEN Pinter prize for 'unflinching, unswerving' poetry
Northern Irish writer praised by judges for his ‘fierce intellectual determination’ wins annual award in memory of the late Nobel laureateBelfast poet Michael Longley, whom Seamus Heaney described as...
View ArticleSand in the Sandwiches review – Edward Fox's Betjeman is tediously tasteful
Theatre Royal Haymarket, LondonHugh Whitemore’s witty but dull homage to the quintessentially English poet lacks the cleverness and drama of his Stevie Smith play“Arbitrary and irrelevant” was the...
View ArticleManchester poet Tony Walsh: ‘I’ve shed more than a few tears this week’
He helped Manchester cope with its grief after the bombing with an electrifying performance. Now a national hero, he talks about surviving poverty, his punk roots and escaping the day jobTony Walsh...
View ArticleThe Saturday poem: Seventy by David Hare
by David Hare. An exclusive poem to mark his 70th birthdayThree score and ten is it, says JahwehThree score and ten is all you’re allowedAfter three score and ten you’re finishedWhoever you are, humble...
View ArticleFrom Sgt Pepper to the sublime: in praise of Liverpool's Metropolitan...
Its opening coincided with the release of the Beatles’ Sgt Pepper album and the publication of the poetry anthology The Mersey Sound. Half a century on, the famous wigwam continues to inspireI see it...
View ArticleField Day review – the Aphex Twin's live comeback raises the temperature
Victoria Park, LondonThe one-day festival has a gigantic new Barn stage, suitably filled by Richard D James’s spine-tingling live return, supported by an eclectic lineup of pop, rap and dance for every...
View ArticleInside the Wave by Helen Dunmore review – a voyage around the imagination
The writer’s latest collection takes in everything from mortality and ageing to the music of the seaThe wave in this humane and visionary collection symbolises the flow of time and tide around and over...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Is Your Country a He Or a She in Your Mouth by Patricia...
A political poem that contests the damaging gendering of nations is also, in the hands of a ‘weird Twitter’ star, a deliciously transgressive rompIs Your Country a He Or a She in Your MouthMine is a...
View ArticlePoet and author Helen Dunmore dies aged 64
The Orange prize winning author of 12 novels and 10 poetry collections has died, not long after revealing her cancer diagnosisPoet and novelist Helen Dunmore, who only recently revealed that she had...
View ArticleHelen Dunmore obituary
Poet and novelist with a flair for reinvention and making history humanThe writer Helen Dunmore, who has died aged 64 of cancer, seldom made herself her subject. The author of 12 novels, three books of...
View ArticleHelen Dunmore's family reveal poem written in the author's last days
Hold out your arms, written shortly before the author died, has been released by her family and is reproduced belowA poem written by Helen Dunmore in the final days of her life, which “glows with...
View ArticleDenis Johnson obituary
Award-winning American novelist, poet and screenwriter who wrote about fallen angels living in a fallen worldIn novels, stories, plays and poems, Denis Johnson, who has died of liver cancer aged 67,...
View ArticleGerard Manley Hopkins: the poet priest who deserves a place in the gay canon
Wrestling with his desires while committed to Jesuit celibacy left poetry as the only outlet for Hopkins’s sexuality, which rings with pent-up passionFun literary fact: when a Jesuit priest called...
View Article
