Poem of the week: Fish by Peter Finch
A witty riff on the avant garde, and Wales, sparkles and spitsFishHe wrote the things decades backHe did them underwaterHe pulled them out like sonic fish,Dada hake, Bauhaus trout, Schwitters...
View ArticleThe Guardian view on poetry for dark times: add Wordsworth to the stockpile |...
A new exhibition traces the influence of the great Romantic’s childhood on his verse. Rereading it can give us inspiration in these testing timesThe mysterious intensity of childhood has fascinated...
View ArticlePoetry book of the month: Loss by David Harsent – review
A firm virtuosity and sense of estrangement drives this challenging new collectionThis is a long watch of a poem, a tormented vigil. You want to ask, “Who’s there?” – a question you might, like the...
View ArticleAli Cobby Eckermann on winning the world's richest writing prize: 'It's taken...
Poet lived in a caravan when she heard she had won $215,000. Ahead of this year’s Windham Campbell, she reflects on what that recognition can bringAli Cobby Eckermann had $47 in the bank and was living...
View ArticleDorothy was also an amazing Wordsworth | Letters
Shirley Stuart on the contribution made by Dorothy Wordsworth, and Sylvia Ayling on memorising a sonnet by her brotherWhether their relationship was sexual is something no one but Dorothy and William...
View Article'After prison, I'm stronger, more vulgar!': the irrepressible Stella Nyanzi
She was imprisoned for writing a negative poem about Uganda’s president. Never one to be silenced, Nyanzi is back with a radically rude collectionIn February, Stella Nyanzi was released from prison....
View ArticleEight authors share $1m prize as writers face coronavirus uncertainty
Bhanu Kapil, Yiyun Li and Namwali Serpell are among the winners of the 2020 Windham Campbell literary prize• Coronavirus and culture – a list of major cancellations• Coronavirus – latest updates• See...
View ArticleLockdown: Simon Armitage writes poem about coronavirus outbreak
Poet laureate says society may emerge from the pandemic ‘slightly slower, and wiser, at the other end’Simon Armitage has written a poem to address the coronavirus and a lockdown that is slowly being...
View ArticlePoetry can be the bridge that connects us during these difficult times
On World Poetry Day, poet Mary Jean Chan recalls growing up during the Sars crisis and considers the role of poetry in a crisisIn the days after the arrival of Covid-19 in the UK, I watched in horror...
View ArticleFour cheers for the Guardian amid the gloom | Letters
Gerald Dunning and Vee Singleton find solace in poetry, Laurie Moye is thankful for extra puzzles and Annie Grist’s spirits are lifted by spring picturesOn Saturday morning I was preparing to bury a...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Antidotes to Fear of Death by Rebecca Elson
An intense engagement with mortality, by a young writer taken too soon, blends religious and scientific imageryAntidotes to Fear of DeathSometimes as an antidoteTo fear of death,I eat the...
View ArticleTop 10 novels and stories about shame
Anna Ahmatova, David Malouf, Yukio Mishima and more explore the emotion that tears us apart but leads us into compassion, writes Christos TsiolkasI was an adolescent when I first came across the...
View ArticleDon't panic: the best books to help us survive a crisis
Joe Moran looks at books on how to keep calm in times of adversity - and take joy where we find it The coronavirus has put life on hold. In this time of fractured human contact and fear of the unknown,...
View ArticleI, Cinna (the Poet) review – Tim Crouch and Jude Owusu are dream teachers
Available onlineA gift for homeschoolers, Owusu dazzles as the poet from Julius Caesar, drawing young viewers into the creative process The outbreak of homeschooling caused by the coronavirus has found...
View Article'Everyone is pulling together': poems by NHS workers to raise money for...
Anthology These Are the Hands collects poems from across the health service, from doctors to cleanersNurse Audrey Ardern-Jones writes of her colleagues around the world “who in fog-grey mists of...
View ArticleMy son was diagnosed with autism at five. Did he inherit it from my...
When my son was diagnosed, I was told the condition was hereditary. Suddenly my late mother’s ‘eccentric, bossy’ personality began to make senseSolomon was my first baby. He was loud. He screamed full...
View ArticleBohemian tragedy: Leonard Cohen and the curse of Hydra
The musician was inspired by married writers George Johnston and Charmian Clift when he visited the Greek island of Hydra in 1960. But their golden age came at a priceI’ve been noticing of late how...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Letter to My Daughter by William Palmer
A parent’s regretful words, ruing miscommunication, sing with clarity and concisionLetter to My DaughterThe hare limped trembling through the frozen grass…Continue reading...
View ArticleBristol celebrates its poet genius who died at just 17
Poems, exhibitions and a comic book to mark talent of Thomas Chatterton, 250 years after deathHe was revered by poets such as Wordsworth, Shelley and Coleridge and a romanticised painting depicting his...
View Article'Anti-Asian racism has come roaring back with Covid-19': Cathy Park Hong on...
The Minor Feelings author talks about stereotypes in the wake of the coronavirus and being inspired by Richard PryorWhen the state of New York received its first confirmed coronavirus patient, both the...
View Article
