Now We Can Talk Openly About Men by Martina Evans – poetry review
A pair of contrasting monologues set in 1920s Ireland are witty and humane to an outstanding degreeKitty Donovan, a dressmaker in the time of the Irish war of independence, arrives on the opening page...
View ArticleMaya Angelou and me: adapting her memoirs brought me eye to eye with an icon
She lived a sensational life – but it was her assumption of her equality that made Maya Angelou radical, as I rediscovered when turning I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings into radio dramaI’ve been...
View Article70 years of the NHS: a revolution that is reborn every day
The creation of the health service changed Britain. Yet while this vision is under severe threat, it has also never been more keenly cherishedIn writing To Provide All People, I hoped to create a...
View ArticleDonald Hall, US poet laureate and prize-winning man of letters, dies at 89
Daughter confirms death at home in New HampshireHall was known for work on love, loss, baseball and the pastDonald Hall, a prolific and award-winning poet and man of letters who was widely admired for...
View Article'A fierce bright light': poet and activist Candy Royalle dies, aged 37
After her final show on 5 June, the trailblazer said, ‘I have finally arrived at where I needed to be’Australia’s literary community has paid tribute to award-winning spoken word artist and activist...
View ArticleFrom Dante to I Love Dick: top 10 books about unrequited love
Novelist Kirsty Gunn chooses books that explore a very literary kind of longingIn Katherine Mansfield’s exquisite long short story At the Bay, Beryl, a middle-aged woman still fantasising about the...
View ArticleAimless Love by Billy Collins review – whimsical and moving
The much-loved American author’s inventive collection is intelligent, accessible – perhaps a little too cosy at timesDubbed the “most popular poet in America” by the New York Times, Billy Collins has...
View ArticleGeorge the Poet is strip-searched by police after gig
Mpanga says ‘out of nowhere’ officers put him in a van after sold-out show in IslingtonThe acclaimed spoken word artist George the Poet has said he was strip-searched by police without cause after a...
View ArticleJohn James obituary
The sensual brevity of John James’s poetry reflected his personality. John, who has died aged 79, was stylish, casual, elegant, unstudied. His Welsh-Irish origins, too, underpinned his work.The only...
View ArticleSeamus Heaney’s family on life with the great poet: ‘He was always just Dad...
Ahead of a Dublin exhibition of the poet’s archive, the Heaney family explain how they put together a new collection to reflect his life as a husband and father, as well as a Nobel laureateIn 2011,...
View ArticleSlam from Sudan: how Emtithal Mahmoud shook the world
She has debated with presidents, been comforted by the Dalai Lama, and been called one of the world’s most inspiring women – but it’s as a poet that Emtithal Mahmoud truly shinesEmtithal Mahmoud was...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Us by Zaffar Kunial
An only apparently informal riff on an only apparently straightforward concept of identity finds some sparky complications Us If you ask me, us takes in undulations–each wave in the sea, all insides...
View ArticleMeic Stephens obituary
Literary editor, arts administrator, translator and poet who promoted Welsh cultural causesMeic Stephens, who has died aged 79, was one of the most productive and influential figures in Welsh writing...
View ArticleBest summer books 2018, as picked by writers – part one
Surrealist artists, dogged detectives, modern lovers and spies behaving badly ... leading authors pick their best books to enjoy these holidaysIf you only read one book this summer … make it this...
View ArticlePoem of the week: from The Gododdin by Aneirin
From an ancient set of Welsh eulogies and elegies, these verses on the impact of war remain potent – and very readableXXIThe men went to Catraeth; they were renowned;Wine and mead from golden cups was...
View ArticleUseless Magic: Lyrics and Poetry by Florence Welch – review
Pop’s high priestess bares her soul in this candid collection charting her transition from wild child to grownupYou’d think, after four hugely successful albums, that Florence Welch would know her own...
View ArticleAncient find may be earliest extract of epic Homer poem Odyssey
Clay slab believed to date from 3rd century AD discovered near ancient city of OlympiaArchaeologists have unearthed an ancient tablet engraved with 13 verses of the Odyssey in the ancient city of...
View ArticleEngland: Poems from a School, edited by Kate Clanchy – review
A poetry anthology by immigrant schoolchildren in Oxford are full of heart and resolveThis is the work of pupils at Oxford Spires academy, written over the nine years the poet Kate Clanchy has been...
View ArticleDylan Moran: ‘Britain is sending itself to its room and not coming down’
The comedian’s new show questions how to cope with the relentlessness of today’s politics. He discusses the ‘cult’ of Catholicism, his love of poetry and giving up his vices“I’ve been doing this for a...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Animal Planet by Ana Blandiana
A plainly spoken reflection on a violent, guilty world adds up to a kind of ‘anti-prayer’ that does not rule out beliefAnimal Planet Less guilty, though not innocent,In this universe whereThe laws of...
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