Poetry Pharmacy webchat: Feeling blue? Could a poem be the answer? Ask...
Are you lonely, nervous about Christmas or frustrated with relatives? William Sieghart of the much-loved Poetry Pharmacy will be in to prescribe you a poem for your problems on Friday 15 December at...
View ArticleReviews roundup: The Odyssey; Dawn of the New Everything; Artemis
What the critics thought of Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey; Jaron Lanier’s Dawn of the New Everything: and Artemis by Andy WeirEmily Wilson’s translation of TheOdyssey is “[a] literary...
View ArticleOvid's exile to the remotest margins of the Roman empire revoked
Rome city council overturns banishment of ‘one of the greatest poets’ more than 2,000 years after Augustus forced him to leaveMore than 2,000 years after Augustus banished him to deepest Romania, the...
View ArticleTwo views of Jerusalem – a short reading list for Donald Trump
A collection of poetry and a book of walks round the city might help the US president with his foreign policyDonald Trump is not a great reader. He has said that he does not in fact need to read...
View ArticlePoem of the week: The Cool Web by Robert Graves
A fierce, small masterpiece, this addresses huge questions of language and war with beguiling easeThe Cool WebChildren are dumb to say how hot the day is,How hot the scent is of the summer rose,How...
View ArticlePaul Muldoon wins Queen's gold medal for poetry 2017
Honour goes to Northern Irishman who has produced 12 major collections of poetry and teaches at Princeton UniversityPaul Muldoon has been named the winner of the Queen’s gold medal for poetry 2017.The...
View ArticleWhy winter is the perfect time for poetry
Our pop culture expert on wallowing in the words of a stranger when things are dark and gloomyUntil school forced me, I do not remember consuming much poetry. Finally, I went beyond the pop culture...
View ArticleLost in rhyme: a walk in the poetic beauty of Ballynahinch, Galway
Amid great walking trails, fantastic fishing, and literary heritage, Ballynahinch Castle hotel delivers the best of Connemara – and you don’t need to be a poet to appreciate itThere are few things I’d...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Outside by Karen McCarthy Woolf
A neatly observed vignette of social rules working differently for the wealthy is delicately drawn, and leaves the moral judgments to the readerOutsideunder the arcadeand the floor-length glass shop...
View ArticleHow I fell in love with WH Auden (again and again) | Susan McDonald
I first read his poetry in my late teens. He can be difficult but the images he conjures are concrete and recognisableWH Auden said “poetry must be entered into by a personal encounter, or it must be...
View ArticleMy family escaped the Manchester attack. Seamus Heaney’s words kept fear at...
As the horror unfolded from the Manchester Arena and I learned that my mother and sister were safe, it was words that gave me hope against terrorIt is with welcome relief that we reach the end of 2017...
View ArticleA new year that changed me: when Seamus Heaney came round for tea | Conor...
An informal 30-minute encounter with Mr and Mrs Heaney showed me that change doesn’t always happen in big, dramatic chunksAt lunchtime on 31 December 1999, our phone rang. I answered.“Is that Conor?”We...
View ArticleThe 100 best nonfiction books of all time: the full list
After two years of careful reading, moving backwards through time, Robert McCrum has concluded his selection of the 100 greatest nonfiction books. Take a quick look at five centuries of great...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Words Were Changing by Miller Oberman
A reflection on the meaning of welcome, this etymologically alert work is calm and joyfulThanked for kindness, I saidyou’re welcome, and welcomespun back to what it meant,before. Welcome, comein, in...
View ArticleManchester attack: poet Tony Walsh gifts ode to region for good causes
Licensing deal means businesses using This is the Place must donate to charity that funds thousands of local projectsThe poem that became a proud symbol of Greater Manchester after the arena bomb...
View ArticleHelen Dunmore wins posthumous Costa award for collection Inside the Wave
Dunmore wins poetry category, while Jon McGregor takes best novel prize for Reservoir 13 and Gail Honeyman’s bestselling debut Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine lands first novel awardThe poet Helen...
View ArticleA matter of taste: six remarkable women and the food they ate
Dorothy Wordsworth’s black pudding, Eleanor Roosevelt and clams, Barbara Pym’s tinned spaghetti ... What does the food these women devoured – or detested – tell us about their lives?“Tell me what you...
View Article2018 in books: a literary calendar
Essays from Zadie Smith, Arnhem from Antony Beevor and novels from Julian Barnes, Sarah Perry, Pat Barker, Rachel Cusk … and Bill Clinton. Place your book orders nowContinue reading...
View ArticleOn my radar: Jon McGregor’s cultural highlights
The novelist and short-story writer on grime music, a play about the Falklands conflict, and the educational benefits of coffeeBorn in Bermuda and raised in Norfolk, Jon McGregor wrote his first novel,...
View ArticlePoem of the week: A Bone Flute by Judith Willson
Reflecting on the dramatic migration of swans to Britain from the far north, this arrestingly wintry work reonates with echoes from the deep pastA Bone Flutemade from the radius bone of a whooper swan...
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