Bruce Dawe's passing is a great loss but his remarkable, socially aware...
For decades when you went into a second-hand bookshop in Australia, if you found only one book of poetry there it would be Bruce Dawe’s Sometimes GladnessThe poet Bruce Dawe, who wrote his first poems...
View ArticleTiger King and a bloody mary: Hilary Mantel, Simon Armitage and other writers...
Simon Armitage pogos to neo-punk, Anne Enright craves for Cary Grant, The Seventh Seal cheers up Julian Barnes, Diana Evans works out to hip-hop and Jeanette Winterson talks to herself … writers reveal...
View ArticleThe best recent poetry – review roundup
In the Lateness of the World by Carolyn Forché; Ledger by Jane Hirshfield; I, Ursula by Ruth Stacey; Yves Bonnefoy: Prose edited by Stephen Romer, Anthony Rudolf and John NaughtonContinue reading...
View ArticleMy favourite book as a kid: Green Eggs and Ham by Dr Seuss
Kicking off a series where writers revisit the book they loved most as a child, Sam Leith returns to a ‘sinister’ classic‘Say! In the dark? Here in the dark? Would you, could you, in the dark?” Dr...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Easter by Róisín Kelly
A chance sighting of an ex-lover sets off very ambivalent emotions, but also a kind of miracleEasterYou walk by holding a bunch of flowersnever knowing that you’ve just performed a miracle.Are those...
View Article'We will meet again': when a monarch brings comfort with a song
The royals aren’t partial to posh poetry – but I remember George VI, like the Queen, bringing solace with a simple line of verseCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageIt is 1939...
View ArticleRadical Wordsworth, Well-Kept Secrets, William Wordsworth review – lives of...
Republican, eco-warrior young Wordsworth v grand older poet – 250 after his birth, do we still have to take sides?James Boswell started his biography of Dr Johnson on an anxious note: “To write the...
View ArticleGovernment rejects bid to turn Oscar Wilde’s prison into an arts centre
Campaign to convert the former prison was backed by Reading council and luminaries including Stephen Fry but rejected by the Ministry of JusticeThe Ministry of Justice has rejected a bid to turn...
View ArticleCarol Ann Duffy's poems to get us through: Adult Fiction by Ian McMillan
The poet starts a new series, picking poems from her shelves to comfort and inspire us in isolation. Here she introduces a work that celebrates the sounds and smells of librariesOver the coming weeks,...
View ArticleCountry diary: the quarry is strictly for the birds now
Glyn Ceiriog, Clwyd: No climbers today brave Hendre’s precarious walls, and daffodils grow by the old tramwayMemory hold the door! My last spring outing before lockdown, I drove steep lanes from...
View ArticlePoem constructed from emails received during quarantine goes viral
Jessica Salfia’s widely shared poem First Lines of Emails I’ve Received While Quarantining has the refrain ‘As you know, many people are struggling’Everyone has received at least one and now they’ve...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Can I fight the power? by Kev Inn
An internal dialogue wrestles with the question of how to contend with undeclared racismCan I fight the power?A meditation on ‘post-raciality’Continue reading...
View ArticleRadical Wordsworth by Jonathan Bate review – fleet-footed and inspiriting
On the 250th anniversary of his birth, a biography focusing on the poet’s most creative years zings with passion and energyIn 1798, William Wordsworth arrived from Bristol at the cottage of his friend,...
View ArticleThe Way Out review – join Omid Djalili on a whirl through wonderland
Available onlineThe labyrinthine corridors of Battersea Arts Centre become a rabbit hole of live acts in this bewitching single-take film Hottest front-room seats: theatre and dance to watch onlineThe...
View ArticleHidden Robert Dover poem uncovered in 17th century plea roll
Discovery sheds light on colourful character part of leading literary and legal circles of the timeA hidden poem found in dusty early 17th century legal parchments at the National Archives has shed...
View ArticleYayoi Kusama's message to Covid-19: 'Disappear from this earth'
The veteran Japanese avant-garde artist has issued a poem of defiance in the teeth of the ‘terrible monster’, the coronavirus pandemicThe best arts and entertainment during self-isolationCoronavirus...
View ArticlePoems to get us through: Nature Walk by Colette Bryce
In the second of a series in which the former poet laureate picks poems from her shelves to comfort and inspire us in isolation, Carol Ann Duffy introduces a gentle study of isolated soulsColette Bryce...
View ArticleLaughter in dark times: Geoff Dyer on funny books you may not have read
A comedic war novel, Eve Babitz’s tale of sex and drugs, and a dog who comes back from the dead ... humour can be found in the strangest placesEveryone knows that writers such as Lorrie Moore, Jonathan...
View ArticleLet’s dust down the archive descriptions | Brief letters
Robert Dover poetry | Care workers | Unusual baby names | The Mirror and the Light Coronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageWhy do journalists always describe archives and their...
View ArticleAll alone online: Iggy Pop and Jeremy Irons lead mass Ancient Mariner reading
Streaming daily, Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s 2020 incarnation also features Marianne Faithfull and Tilda Swinton as readers, set against sound and fine art“Alone, alone, all, all alone.” The cry of the...
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