Poem of the week: Not for That City by Charlotte Mew
A sonnet contemplating the fulfilment of a cosmic ideal shows a very modern kind of doubtNot for That CityNot for that city of the level sun,Its golden streets and glittering gates ablaze –The...
View ArticleMichael Rosen: ‘Stories hung in the air about great-aunts and uncles who’d gone’
Searching for the missing pieces in his family brought poet and author Michael Rosen closer to the horror of warEvery time the poet Michael Rosen found out something new about what happened to his...
View ArticleRaymond Antrobus: ‘In some ways, poetry is my first language’
The award-winning poet on addressing the loss of his father, owning his deafness and being added to the school syllabusPoet and educator Raymond Antrobus was born in Hackney, London, in 1986 to an...
View ArticleThe Dolphin Letters, 1970-1979: Elizabeth Hardwick, Robert Lowell, and Their...
This collection of correspondence between the critic and the poet as their marriage fell apart provides a riveting study of ethics and betrayalLife is raw, but we expect literature to be properly...
View ArticleAlasdair Gray obituary
Artist whose witty, accessible words and pictures in many mediums sparked a creative flowering in his native ScotlandAlasdair Gray, who has died aged 85, was the father figure of the renaissance in...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Charms by WH Davies
To start the year, a love poem of strikingly direct and unforced expressionCharmsShe walks as lightly as the fly Skates on the water in July.Continue reading...
View ArticleDuolingo sparks Gaelic boom as young Scots shrug off 'cringe' factor
More than 127,000 sign up to learn while Open University launches Scots language courseAlmost double the number of people in Scotland who already speak Scottish Gaelic have signed up to learn the...
View ArticleTS Eliot’s hidden love letters reveal intense, heartbreaking affair
‘I tried to pretend that my love for you was dead, though I could only do so by pretending myself that my heart was dead,’ the poet wrote to Emily HaleTS Eliot’s intimate letters to confidante unveiled...
View ArticlePoem of the month: The Canon by Jacqueline Saphra
Each month the Guardian’s Review section selects a poem to highlightThe men are in my room again: this timeI wake with Petrarch panting in my earwhile the Bard’s at my desk checking my rhymes.Such joy;...
View ArticleThe best recent poetry – review roundup
Reckless Paper Birds by John McCullough; Edge by Katrina Porteous; The Equilibrium Line by David Wilson; A Man’s House Catches Fire by Tom SastryJohn McCullough has a reputation for crafting lyric...
View ArticleNever date a poet. They’ll always do the dirty on you | Alex Clark
Even from beyond the grave, TS Eliot insists on getting the last word with his ‘muse’In between the excellent things that the early days of 2020 have brought (Greta “Sharon” Thunberg) and the...
View ArticlePoem of the week: House by Robert Browning
A brilliantly wry poem about poetry that reaches farther into society than you might expectHouseI Shall I sonnet-sing you about myself? Do I live in a house you would like to see? Is it scant of gear,...
View ArticleJonathan Coe wins Costa prize for ‘perfect’ Brexit novel
Middle England’s EU referendum story secures the 2019 novel award and goes up against first fiction, poetry and biography for Costa book of the yearJonathan Coe’s portrait of a Britain torn apart by...
View ArticlePoem of the week – Ghazal: Myself by Marilyn Hacker
An apparently very personal statement about how to live extends into much wider politicsGhazal: Myself by Marilyn HackerThey say the rules are: be forgotten, or proclaim myself.I’m reasonably tired of...
View ArticleBritish-Trinidadian dub poet Roger Robinson wins TS Eliot prize
Judges praise A Portable Paradise for finding evidence of ‘sweet, sweet life’ in the bitterness of everyday experienceRoger Robinson, the British-Trinidadian dub poet, has won the prestigious TS Eliot...
View ArticleTS Eliot prize-winner Roger Robinson: ‘I want these poems to help people to...
From a lament for the victims of Grenfell Tower to snapshots of Windrush arrivals … activist, musician and poet Roger Robinson discusses the inspiration behind his prize‑winning collection“Since I was...
View ArticleWordsworth treasures donated to poet's Lake District home
Collection includes family Bible and two portraits that have never been put on displayA treasure trove of newly discovered items belonging to William Wordsworth, one of England’s greatest poets, have...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Harlem Shadows by Claude McKay
Free from moralising, this study of life on the streets of 1920s Harlem has a flowing rhythm and charm Harlem ShadowsI hear the halting footsteps of a lassIn Negro Harlem when the night lets fallIts...
View ArticleStates of the Body Produced by Love by Nisha Ramayya review – a difficult...
Learning the Sanksrit of her forebears with a colonial English dictionary has inspired the poet to explore some challenging questionsNisha Ramayya’s collection, States of the Body Produced By Love, is...
View Article‘It happens to real people’: how to help children grasp the horror of the...
Remembering the questions of his own childhood has helped Michael Rosen to tell pupils difficult truthsAs a very young child, the only inkling I had of the Holocaust was that every now and then my...
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