John Cunliffe obituary
Creator of the Postman Pat stories, who depicted a community-spirited but disappearing worldJohn Cunliffe, who has died aged 85, said he was inspired to create Postman Pat by his work for Wooler mobile...
View ArticleBlake Morrison on Skipton: ‘I joined the village choir, as a way of seeing my...
The poet and author on two inspiring English teachers and the arrival of a youth club that opened up his worldWhen asked where I grew up, I say Skipton, as there’s a chance people will have heard of...
View ArticleHow poetry can light up our darker moments
In this fast-moving technological world, lines of poetry can be food for the soul and help people with mental illnessHow can learning poetry by heart help us to be more grounded, happy, calm people?...
View ArticleThe Sweet Flypaper of Life by Roy DeCarava and Langston Hughes – review
This singular hybrid of photography and poetry captures 50s Harlem on the brink of changeThe story goes that Langston Hughes met Roy DeCarava by accident on a street corner in uptown Manhattan in 1954...
View ArticlePoem of the week: The Quiet Snow by Raymond Knister
A Canadian poem that blends modernism with the pastoral reveals a natural calm at work in the city as well as the countryThe Quiet SnowThe quiet snowWill splotchEach in the row of cedarsWith a fineAnd...
View ArticleRunning Upon the Wires by Kate Tempest review – raw revelations
Kate Tempest’s self-exposing collection of poems, ballads and lyrics pulse with recklessness and vulnerabilityThis is the most personal collection Kate Tempest has ever written. It is her offstage,...
View ArticleSend us your questions for John Cooper Clarke...
Got something to ask the original punk poet? Here’s your chance, ahead of the second leg of his UK tourCharacterised by his rakish style and punk staccato rhythms, poet John Cooper Clarke rose to...
View ArticleAndrew Motion uses headstone tributes to write new war poem
Former poet laureate drew inspiration from personal inscriptions to write ArmisticeSome chose from the scriptures. Others, from literature and poetry. For families of the first world war’s fallen,...
View ArticleFrom John Keats to Nick Cave: poems for every stage in life
This National Poetry Day, whether you’re in need of some verse for a wedding or to mark a death at 104, Chris Riddell selects his favourite poems for key life momentsThe great power of poetry is its...
View ArticlePatrick O'Brian's unknown poems discovered in a drawer
Cache of more than 100 pieces, of which even his family was unaware, will be published next year as The Uncertain Land and Other Poems• Read two of the poems belowAfter sitting in a desk drawer for...
View ArticleBrass band and Oxbridge mourners at WH Auden’s funeral – archive, 5 Oct 1973
5 October 1973: The English-American poet is laid to rest in a small Austrian villageKirchstetten, October 4 Wystan Hugh Auden was buried here today in the little Roman Catholic churchyard in the...
View ArticleWho Is Mary Sue? by Sophie Collins review – correcting sexist narratives
Using a range of inventive techniques, these poems pick apart damaging assumptions about female creativityThe term “Mary Sue” was coined by author Paula Smith in 1973, to satirise the unrealistic...
View ArticlePoem of the week: A corner of the road, early morning by Norman MacCaig
With precise local detail and metaphorical daring, the poet finds inspiration in his Highland surroundingsA corner of the road, early morning by Norman MacCaigThe thorny lightScratched out a lanky rose...
View ArticleThe – very quick – Slowdown: will a five minute poetry podcast calm your nerves?
A new daily podcast is read by US poet laureate Tracy K Smith – but it’s just the tip of a social-media-driven resurgence in versifyingName: The Slowdown.Appearance: Every weekday, starting in late...
View Article'Forgotten' female poet of first world war to be honoured at armistice centenary
Mary Borden’s passionate sonnet was addressed to a British soldier with whom she had an affair while running a field hospital at the battle of the SommeA love poem written from the frontline of the...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Manhattan by Lola Ridge
An intensely dynamic vision of New York City in the early 20th century raises questions about its gilded allureManhattanOut of the night you burn, Manhattan,In a vesture of gold – Span of innumerable...
View ArticleShirley Toulson obituary
My mother, Shirley Toulson, who has died aged 94, was a highly regarded poet and an innovative writer about Britain’s walks, ancient tracks and traditions.Her poetry was broadcast and published in...
View ArticleAnna Burns's Booker prize win and poet Kate Tempest – books podcast
Milkman delivers the 2018 Man Booker prize, while we listen in as a poet discusses the lyric art with her editorThis week saw Anna Burns crowned as winner of the 2018 Man Booker prize. We discuss how...
View ArticleTS Eliot prize announces 'intensely political' shortlist
Prestigious £25,000 award selects 10 collections showcasing ‘poetry’s ability to engage with language when it is being debased’A sequence of sonnets written during the first 200 days of Donald Trump’s...
View ArticleWeatherwatch: autumn in Borrowdale, in the words of Coleridge
The romantic poet found Borrowdale in the rain a marvel of light and colourIt is drizzling rain, the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote in his notebook on a Friday morning, 21 October 1803, in the Lake...
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