Cracking the whip on a cruel horse racing practice | Brief letters
Horse racing | Brains and computers | Marmalade treats | Misheard hymn | Poetry headquarters | Boris’s withdrawal agreementFinally a piece of good news from horse racing (Whips to be banned in £1.8m...
View ArticleA Tartt snack better than jam and cream | Brief letters
Cream cheese and marmalade | Miriam Margolyes | Proportional representation | Poetry HQ | World Book DayI tried David and Bryony Graham’s marmite and marmalade (Letters, 21 February), but it was not...
View ArticleTransphobia row leaves Scottish poetry scene in turmoil
After the Scottish Poetry Library aired concerns over ‘escalating disharmony’, campaigners have questioned its respect for trans writers A bitter conflict is escalating in the Scottish literary scene...
View ArticleKaterina Anghelaki-Rooke obituary
My friend Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke, who has died aged 80, was a poet whose work was widely admired not only in her homeland of Greece but across Europe and the US. She was also a translator of many...
View ArticleErnesto Cardenal obituary
Poet and priest who mixed religion and politics in his commitment to social justice in NicaraguaIn 1983 ministers of the revolutionary Sandinista government lined up on the tarmac to welcome Pope John...
View ArticleBard labour: boost workplace productivity 'by reading a poem'
Poetry world thrilled at news the New York Times’ morning meeting begins with Wordsworth or SimicThose seeking to have more productive morning meetings are often advised to hold them standing up, keep...
View ArticlePoem of the month: Nightingale by Deryn Rees-Jones
Dear bird of the early hours, little sharp-beaked,brown bird, throat open, wise bird, jazz riff, cello start,sad techno, harder heart, self broken / broken part, halfnoun, verb start, bird...
View ArticleThe best recent poetry – review roundup
Zonal by Don Paterson; The Martian’s Regress by JO Morgan; Come Down by Fiona Sampson; and Loss by David HarsentFans of Don Paterson’s lyric poetry will find his latest volume, Zonal (Faber, £14.99),...
View ArticleMagnetic fields: Simon Armitage on the pull of Marsden
The poet laureate rarely read as a child – it was the view from his house at the edge of the moors that shaped his poetic visionMarsden is the last village in the Colne Valley as it climbs westward...
View ArticleLaurie Morgan obituary
Influential British jazz experimenter of the 1940s and 50sLaurie Morgan, who has died aged 93, was an influential member of the coterie of British jazz experimenters of the 1940s and 50s that most...
View ArticlePoem of the week: The Idler by Alice Dunbar Nelson
This study of a man who stands back from worldly haste and ambition gives the busy reader pauseThe IdlerAn idle lingerer on the wayside’s road,He gathers up his work and yawns away;A little longer, ere...
View ArticleBard idea? The rise of workplace poetry | Letters
Readers respond to the news that the New York Times’ morning meetings now include poems, and praise a tree-planting group that has helped to inspire a poetI’ve actually bought, read and enjoyed several...
View ArticlePoet’s corners: a car-free tour of inspiring Wordsworth sites
To celebrate 250 years since his birth, we take 10 train and bus trips to houses, gardens, lakes – vales and hills, too – that were important to this early environmentalistWilliam Wordsworth was born...
View ArticleTitian: Love, Desire, Death review – whims of the gods made flesh
National Gallery, LondonThe artist’s epic series of paintings drawn from the poet Ovid hang together for the first time in three centuries, and tell a tale of sex, power and subversion The women are...
View ArticleThe Turkish poet imprisoned for 26 years for a crime he did not commit
Memories of freedom, love and companionship fill the poems of İlhan Çomak, who was arrested at the age of 22The good news is that last year the Turkish poet İlhan Çomak won a major award, the Sennur...
View ArticleLawrence Upton obituary
My friend Lawrence Upton, who has died aged 70, was a leading figure in the British poetry revival of the 1960s and 70s, as a poet, publisher, sound artist, graphic artist and performer. In the 70s he...
View ArticleOne year after Christchurch we seek solace in community and being...
In many ways, life has not changed for many of my Muslim friends and me because the world has not changed. However, hope existsA body on the floor of a place of worship is still a bodyThe fall, and the...
View ArticleUnique Pablo Neruda archive – and slice of history – up for auction
Chilean poet’s letters, photos, rare books, postcards and artefacts represent ‘a huge part of the 20th century’A little over two years into the Spanish civil war, one of Spain’s greatest poets wrote to...
View ArticleMaking a note of a treasonable offence | Brief letters
The Divan of Hafez | The Queen | Max von Sydow | Marmalade | Defining a gentlemanIt was with great interest that I read about the recovery of a copy of the Divan of Hafez (Report, 11 March). My...
View ArticleOn my radar: Winsome Pinnock’s cultural highlights
The British playwright on the power of Ballet Black, the soulful sound of Ayanna Witter-Johnson and an unmissable vegan cafeWinsome Pinnock is an award‑winning British playwright. Born in Islington in...
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