Marjorie Boulton obituary
My friend Marjorie Boulton, who has died aged 93, was an Esperanto poet who was a candidate for the Nobel prize in literature in 2008. She was also an ambassador for the Esperanto community. A prolific...
View ArticleHusband's elegy for Jenny Diski wins Forward prize for best single poem
Ian Patterson’s The Plenty of Nothing, begun in the days leading up to her death, shares honours with best collection win for Sinéad Morrissey’s On BalanceIan Patterson’s elegy for his late wife, the...
View ArticleTwo glasses of red wine every evening? Tick
And if two glasses are good, only imagine the benefits that accrue to me from fiveBy my reckoning, I must be the healthiest person in the country. Brisk 10-minute walk a day? Tick. Two glasses of red...
View ArticleYrsa Daley-Ward: ‘People are afraid to tell the truth'
She has a lot to say… about sexuality, relationships and mental health. But how did Lancashire’s Yrsa Daley-Ward become the toast of Los Angeles? Eve Barlow meets the poet, feminist, model and LGBTQ...
View ArticlePoem of the week: The Silent Heavens by Richard Watson Dixon
A unfairly neglected poet’s lament, this is an autumnal poem on a grand scale, responding to the effects of time and evolving knowledgeThe Silent HeavensHere I wander about, and here I mournfully...
View ArticleCan books and poetry make you happier? - books podcast
We talk to William Sieghart and Viv Groskop about the restorative properties of literature and poetry - can reading make you happier? Subscribe and review: iTunes, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud and...
View ArticleVelkom to Inklandt by Sophie Herxheimer review – following in Grandma’s...
An uplifting collection told in the voice of the author’s German Jewish grandmother. Read it aloud for best effectThis book is uplifting, funny, heart-breaking – a one-off. I have been wondering how...
View ArticleLetter: David Gill obituary
Arriving in 1967 at Nyakasura school, Uganda, as a young English teacher, I had the honour of being accommodated in what the school compound knew as “David Gill’s house”. David had a reputation for...
View ArticleBernard Pomerance obituary
My friend Bernard Pomerance, who has died aged 76, was a playwright and poet whose most famous work was the play The Elephant Man. It had its first run in Britain in 1977, then went over to New York...
View ArticleAppeal launched to collect poetry in endangered languages
Marking the UK’s National Poetry Day, an international call for readers to submit poems that could be lost to future generations has gone outShare your poems on National Poetry Day 2017From Assyrian to...
View ArticleShare your poems on National Poetry Day 2017
To mark the UK’s annual celebration of poetry, we’d like you to share your writing with us As National Poetry Day celebrates its 23rd year, we’d like you to share your poems with us.National Poetry Day...
View ArticleSylvia Plath's bikini shot: it's time to stop sexualising a serious author to...
The UK cover of a new collection of letters is only the latest to show the acclaimed poet as blond, beaming and in a skimpy outfit. But presenting female writers as mere sex symbols diminishes their...
View ArticleOnly bampots will girn about BBC’s poetic delight | Kevin McKenna
BBC Scotland’s poet in residence, Stuart A Paterson, promotes Scots as a living language, a useful antithesis to modern bureaucratic EnglishIt won’t be long now before BBC Scotland is assailed by the...
View ArticleThe 13-year-old Syrian refugee who became a prizewinning poet
A year after learning to speak English, Amineh Abou Kerech has won this year’s Betjeman prize. She tells us how she found her voice“I take words from anywhere,” says Amineh Abou Kerech, moments after...
View ArticleWilliam Sieghart: ‘I want people to drop their fear of poetry’
The publisher and philanthropist on turning to a Philip Larkin poem in a crisis, and the biggest decision you will ever makePublisher and philanthropist William Sieghart has many strings to his bow: he...
View ArticlePoem of the week: I Keep My Eyes on the Ground by Caroline Bird
A witty meditation on uncertain understanding, this work rests its mutable questions on a solid structureI Keep My Eyes on the GroundYour penumbra shimmers with small printin Papyrus font,...
View ArticleThe Lost Words by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris review – sumptuous
A book combining meticulous wordcraft with exquisite illustrations deftly restores language describing the natural world to the children’s lexiconIn 2007, the new edition of the Oxford Junior...
View ArticleHot fresh poems: behind the scenes at Contains Strong language – in pictures
The Guardian photographer Tom Jenkins visits the new poetry festival in Hull, where poems are being sold from vans, hung from washing lines and brought to life by burlesque dancersContinue reading...
View ArticleWar baby: the amazing story of Ocean Vuong, former refugee and prize-winning...
His grandfather was a US soldier who fell in love with a Vietnamese farm girl. But then Saigon fell and the family was blown apart. Ocean Vuong poured it all into Night Sky With Exit Wounds, winning...
View ArticleYour Silence Will Not Protect You by Audre Lorde review – prophetic and...
The black lesbian feminist writer and poet, who died 25 years ago, is better known than ever, her words often quoted in books and on social mediaThis is the first edition of Audre Lorde’s writing to be...
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