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Bones Will Crow: 15 Contemporary Burmese Poets – review
Long faced by the permafrost of dictatorship, Burma's poets have deployed metaphor to ingenious effectThe modernist phase of Burmese poetry, known as khitsan (meaning "testing the times"), emerged in...
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Poems on the Underground: time to celebrate 150 years of London life
The poems chosen to mark the 150th anniversary of the capital's tube system reflect both the history and diversity of LondonIt's quite a challenge to choose poems for display on the tube during the...
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Letters: Churchill's poem is more parody than schoolboy patriotism
I enjoyed reading the poem which Winston Churchill wrote in 1899 or 1900 (Report, 7 February), but was puzzled by the comments of such experienced critics as Andrew Motion and Robert Potts. The former...
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Feminine mystique: Why Bell Jar cover obscures real women
Faber's new Sylvia Plath edition has been ridiculed for its coy chic, but many publishers are similarly shy of the second sexFaber has rightly taken stick for the chick-litstyle jacket of its...
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Lucretius, part 4: things fall apart | Emma Woolerton
A life too long lived is a misery in itself. When the body dies, the soul disperses as it is mortal like the world around usWe need to know the world is made of atoms, Lucretius tells us, to stop us...
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Poem of the week: 'Time has disappeared/Lo temps s'es perdut' by Aurélia...
A mysterious set of vanishings are the allusive concerns whispering through this contemporary Occitan verseThis week, we've an unusual treat, a contemporary poem by a writer who works in the language...
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Are these the 50 most influential books by women? | Robert McCrum
As readers pointed out, my last list was rather skewed to a male-dominated tradition. Here is an alternative perspectiveLast week's post about the 50 turning-points of English (and American) literature...
View ArticleSylvia Plath: Lady Lazarus – video
Fifty years after Sylvia Plath's death, we present Lady Lazarus, an experimental film using recordings of the poet reading
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Chaucer's Valentine
A new poem for Valentine's Day by Carol Ann Duffy(for N.)The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne...but be my valentine and I'll one candle burn,love's light a fluent...
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Enter Philip Ardagh's Valentine's Day limerick competition!
Can you write a Valentine's limerick inspired by an opening line written by Philip Ardagh? Send us your romantic rhymes for the chance to win signed copies of his new book The Truth About LoveEddie...
View ArticleGuardian Books podcast: Carol Ann Duffy's Love Poems for Valentine's Day
In a special Valentine's Day book club, Carol Ann Duffy reads from a collection featuring the best of her love poetry. A ladies' maid considers the voluptuous life of her mistress upstairs as,...
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Robert Bly to receive Poetry Society of America's Frost Medal
American poet also known for the book Iron John, which helped inspire 'the expressive men's movement', and his translationsThe American poet Robert Bly is to be awarded the Frost Medal for a...
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Hidden treasures: Sir John Betjeman's Banana Blush
Betjeman described his debut album as a 'vulgar pop song record' but he was wrong: these tales of unconsumated love and mislaid virtue have extraordinary emotional powerBack in April 1974, I picked up...
View ArticleGuardian Books poetry podcast: Jo Shapcott reads Emily Dickinson
Jo Shapcott kicks off a new series of poets reading from their favourite work by another author. Shapcott picks Emily DickinsonJo ShapcottTim Maby
View ArticleGuardian Books Poetry podcast: Robin Robertson reads David Jones
Our series of poets choosing their favourite poem continues with Robin Robertson reading from David Jones's In ParenthesisTim Maby
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Tony Harrison's poem V is a timeless portrayal of working-class aspiration
V reflects the social divisions that seem to have hardened 25 years after the poem's Channel 4 appearance caused outrageWhatever happened to the northern iconoclasts? You know, the likely lads and...
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Lucretius, part 5: all perceptions are true | Emma Woolerton
Everything we see is made up of the infinite atoms that swirl about us. These perceptions are the basis of our certain knowledge about the worldHow do we know that we're real? How do we know that we...
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Poem of the week: Otterspool Prom by Peter Robinson
Robinson's sonnet to Britain's early spring sunshine, with kites flying over the river Mersey, is casual, vital and gracefulThis week's poem, "Otterspool Prom," is a sonnet by Peter Robinson, from his...
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Rare poem by 'world's worst poet' expected to fetch £3,000 at auction
19th-century poet William Topaz McGonagall, whose works were so detested he was pelted with rotten fish, has last laughOne of the unpublished works of a music hall performer from Dundee who gained...
View ArticleGuardian Books poetry podcast: Simon Armitage reads Ted Hughes
One Yorkshire poet reads another as Simon Armitage continues our series of poets choosing their favourite verses with Ted Hughes's Full Moon and Little FriedaSimon ArmitageTim Maby
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