Top 10 human-animal relationships in literature
On World Animal Day, novelist Henrietta Rose-Innes looks at some of the best depictions of this ‘crucial human task’, by James Herriot, Karen Joy Fowler and othersUnderstanding how we engage with the...
View ArticleRupi Kaur: the inevitable backlash against Instagram's favourite poet
Kaur’s verses on love, sex and race have made her the most revered – and reviled – of today’s ‘instapoets’. As a new collection The Sun and Her Flowers hits shelves, is the social media star a dark...
View ArticleFeast of words: Yomi Sode and the theatre poets stirring a new style
Like Kate Tempest and Inua Ellams, the Nigerian-born performer is breaking new ground with Coat, his tale of two cultures, told while he cooks up a stew on stage‘It’s amazing how not-so-simple...
View ArticlePeter Howard obituary
My friend Peter Howard, who has died of cancer aged 60, performed with the poets’ group the Joy of Six. His published works included Low Probability of Racoons, Game Theory, one full collection,...
View ArticleLeonard Cohen's last book, finished 'days before his death', due out next year
The Flame collects unpublished poetry, as well as notebook entries and song lyrics, and offers ‘an intimate look inside the life and mind of a singular artist’A book of Leonard Cohen’s final poems,...
View Article'Now it’s the coolest thing': rise of Rupi Kaur helps boost poetry sales
Young rebel poets are bringing about a power shift in contemporary poetry and drawing a wider audience to the art formForget page-turners and celebrity memoirs, Brits have rekindled their love of...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Pershing at the Front by Arthur Guiterman
A roistering comic satire, finding black comedy in the trenches, this is a spry dig at the lumbering machinery of warPershing at the Front The General came in a new tin hatTo the shell-torn front where...
View ArticleWhat happened when a poet was sent to the biggest US mall to write for shoppers
Brian Sonia-Wallace was selected to pen poems at the Mall of America. In a shrine to consumerism, he regularly brought visitors to tearsIn March of 2017, I responded to a ridiculous post that a friend...
View ArticleTop 10 modern Nordic books
As a year-long festival celebrating the region’s writers gets under way in London, Icelandic novelist Sjón selects essential reading from the far northWith the cold wave of Nordic literature crashing...
View ArticleWriters step in to defend author accused of plagiarism in New York Times
Jill Bialosky’s Poetry Will Save Your Life was charged with extensive use of others’ writing, but peers say accidental repetitions ‘were not egregious theft’More than 70 authors, including Pulitzer...
View ArticleHappiness is a salty potato – and other life lessons from Russian literature
Don’t trust a woman who wears too much perfume and know your limits – Viv Groskop on the 10 top tips Chekhov, Tolstoy and others have for us todayWar and Peace by Leo TolstoyThis is the five-page...
View Article'I dream of being an accountant': Wall of Dreams shines refugees' hopes over...
As a huge projection over London’s Southbank Centre illuminates the wishes of the city’s displaced people, participants explain some of their stories Mohammed, a gangly 17-year-old who fled Syria with...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Ay, But Can Ye? by Vladimir Mayakovsky
To mark the centenary of Russia’s revolution, an energetic reflection on how to make similarly radical art in a startling Scots translation by Edwin Morgan Ay, But Can Ye?Wi a jaup the darg-day map’s...
View ArticleIndigenous poet Ellen van Neerven abused by year 12 English students
Writer faces racist and vulgar posts on Facebook after her poem Mango is used as a sample text in Year 12 examThe head of the New South Wales education standards authority has said he is “appalled”...
View ArticleRichard Wilbur obituary
US poet laureate, translator and Pulitzer prizewinner with the ability to touch unsettling truths beneath the surface in his workIn 1957, when he won the Pulitzer prize for his third book of poetry,...
View ArticleSean Hughes imagines his death: 'I know how boring funerals can be'
In a poem that has been widely shared by fans after his death, the comic thinks of his ashes being scattered in a bar – and getting a mention in the Guardian‘Charming, soulful, a proper comic’: Sean...
View ArticleIn these troubled times we need good poets more than ever | Christina Patterson
We’re bombarded by instant thoughts on everything. Luckily I’ve seen the future of poetry – and it’s bright“If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off,” said the American poet Emily...
View ArticleProud to have published Audre Lorde in the UK | Letters
At Sheba Feminist Press we published Lorde’s Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, The Cancer Journals, Our Dead Behind Us, and A Burst of Light: and Other Essays, writes Sue O’SullivanRO Kwon’s review of a...
View ArticleSolli Raphael, 12, becomes youngest winner of Australian Poetry Slam – video
Poet Solli Raphael from Coffs Harbour in New South Wales delivers an encore performance at the Australian Poetry Slam national final to a full house at the Sydney Opera House, becoming the...
View ArticleRose McGowan’s tweet suggests a poetic justice for Weinstein’s poison | Peter...
By tweeting Blake’s poem A Poison Tree without comment after her Weinstein allegations, McGowan has helped illuminate its complex meaningsAs the Weinstein scandal begins to look like a red pill moment...
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