Surge by Jay Bernard review – tragedy and solidarity
An archive of black radical British history is explored against the backdrop of the Grenfell and Windrush scandals For those readers of Jay Bernard’s debut Surge who are not familiar with the...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Bus Station by Sheenagh Pugh
Travellers using their waiting time to access the streaming world of 21st-century information are seen from a surprising new angleBus StationPassengers on the move, not moving,becalmed in a between...
View ArticleIntolerance is rising in Europe, but can writers find hope? – books podcast
On this week’s episode, Claire meets two writers from different generations who have connected though their work. Johny Pitts, a young photographer, musician and broadcaster, travels through 10...
View ArticleLines Off by Hugo Williams review – fascinating reflections on body and mind
Inspired by a spell in hospital, Hugo Williams confronts the body in crisis with irresistible styleHugo Williams’s “lines off” – a stage direction – were written during a period in which he had...
View ArticlePunk hellraiser Lydia Lunch: 'I'm chronically misunderstood – but I get off...
The runaway, singer and counter-culture icon is hitting 60 – and is as incendiary as ever, touring and raging against polluters and politicians in a rip-roaring bookLydia Lunch turned 60 this year, but...
View ArticleThe best recent poetry – review roundup
Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky; The Million-Petalled Flower of Being Here by Vidyan Ravinthiran; Significant Other by Isabel Galleymore; Truth Street by David Cain“The deaf don’t believe in silence,”...
View ArticleColombia's rebel poets: from 'verbal terrorists' to favoured sons
The Nadaistas, an iconoclastic group of young poets in Medellín, once sparked outrage but now their influence is felt from the metro to the corridors of powerIn a small plaza in Medellín, the teenage...
View ArticleFawzi Karim obituary
My friend Fawzi Karim, who has died aged 73, was a major poet of the Arab world and beyond. His poetry has been widely translated; I met him while working on English versions of his work.Plague Lands,...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Apology by William Morris
Opening the practical socialist’s 42,000-line epic The Earthly Paradise, this is a pithy tribute to the consolations of poetryApology, from The Earthly ParadiseOf Heaven or Hell I have no power to...
View Article'A unique and slightly mad effort': mapping Britain in poetry
A national community arts project, where poems are matched to precise locations, is reinventing a 17th-century classic for the digital agePinned just west of Marsden, Yorkshire on a 17th-century map of...
View Article'I will never hear my father's voice': Ilya Kaminsky on deafness and escaping...
Until his family migrated to the US when he was 16, the Ukrainian-born poet lived without sound. He discusses his family’s persecution and his first collection in a decadeIlya Kaminsky has only...
View ArticleFrom Ted Hughes to HG Wells: Jeanette Winterson picks the best books about...
Fifty years since Apollo 11 landed, the novelist shares her favourite books and poems about Earth’s mysterious satelliteThere she is, 239,000 miles from Earth. A lover’s moon, a poet’s moon, a painted...
View Article'Offensive' poem about Condoleezza Rice stokes New Hampshire verse rift
Governor drops nominee over sexually suggestive poemDaniel Patrick Moran was published by Asinine PoetryNew Hampshire governor Chris Sununu has abandoned his pick for state poet laureate, amid growing...
View ArticleA woman's greatest enemy? A lack of time to themselves | Brigid Schulte
If what it takes to create are long stretches of time alone, that’s something women have never had the luxury to expectA few months ago, as I struggled to carve out time in my crowded days for writing,...
View ArticleJohn Cooper Clarke: ‘I didn’t want to quit heroin’
While conceding the drug was ‘fabulous the first time’, the veteran performer has one overwhelming message: don’t do itJohn Cooper Clarke, the poet and performer who became famous during the punk rock...
View ArticlePoem of the week: The Horse and the Monkey by Mary Jean Chan
A sunny reflection on the obstacles a couple has overcomeThe Horse and the MonkeyI tell you that I am horse, youa monkey, fated by the Chinesezodiac to remain together as longas both partners practise...
View Article‘Like air, I’ll rise': Ilhan Omar and others on words to conquer hate
Inspired by Omar, the Guardian and Pen America asked writers to share inspiring lines from poems about overcoming hate – and readers to submit theirsLast week, after a chant of “send her back” broke...
View ArticleCats trailer’s weirdness would have appealed to TS Eliot, suggests estate
Trustees of the poet’s legacy, welcoming the forthcoming film, say it is no stranger than his Old Possum’s Book of Practical CatsAlthough the trailer for the film adaptation of Cats divided the...
View ArticleHurrah for 'flyting' – but we can do better than Piers Morgan and Alan Sugar
The ‘frenemies’ have taken to aiming insulting limericks at each other – but they can’t beat 15th-century poets William Dunbar and Walter KennedyThe 15th-century Scottish poets William Dunbar and...
View Article'I, too, sing America': readers share poetry to conquer hate
After four congresswomen faced racist attacks last week, we asked Guardian readers to share inspiring lines from poems and literature about overcoming hateAfter a chant of “send her back” broke out at...
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