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Roger Robinson: 'Poets can translate trauma'

The writer and musician talks about his prize-winning poetry collection, his Caribbean education and why the death of George Floyd has been felt so strongly in the UKRoger Robinson is a writer who has...

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Poem of the week: My pity is fake … by Miriam Neiger-Fleischmann

These stark lines set out a hard, unfinished personal reckoning with atrocious memoryMy pity is fake,my poems, atonement.Mutation in my genesbegan in the gas chambers.Even before that,antigens...

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WeRNotVirus review – responses to a pandemic of racism

Available onlineTen short plays responding to the rise in racist attacks since the beginning of the Covid-19 outbreak have a cumulative powerHottest front-room seats: the best theatre and dance to...

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Forgotten plays: No 4 – Bloody Poetry (1984) by Howard Brenton

This magnificently honest play about the Shelleys and Byron’s summer of sexual experimentation raises difficult questions about the cost of utopian aspirationsHoward Brenton’s output is massive. I...

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Poem of the week: Glacier by Gillian Clarke

Finding an unsettling symmetry between ecological catastrophe and the Aberfan Welsh pit village disaster, this sonnet conjures a fragile beauty GlacierThe miles-deep Greenland glacier’s lost its...

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Michael Rosen home from intensive care after coronavirus

The 74-year-old children’s author tweeted ‘I’ve survived!’ after leaving hospital, having been admitted at the end of MarchMichael Rosen has finally made it back home after going into intensive care...

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Roger Robinson meets Rachel Long: 'I feel like a mosquito taking on Godzilla'

Continuing our series of cross-generational conversations between black British artists, poets Roger Robinson and Rachel Long discuss the prejudices of the white publishing world and the power of...

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Diversity in poetry on the rise – but 'resistance to inclusivity' remains

UK report finds magazines and newspapers now featuring twice as many poets and critics of colour as in 2009The poetry world has made progress on diversity, a new report finds, but “resistance or...

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‘There’s no such thing as a socially distanced mosh pit’: artists on the...

Poet laureate Simon Armitage and comedian Lolly Adefope love the buzz of performance. Here’s what we’re all missingReady, steady... Oh: Olympics, Glastonbury and Euro 2020 stars on the summer we’ve...

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Michael Rosen: ‘The incredible NHS saved my life’

The children’s author and poet, 74, talks about surviving coronavirus, enjoying getting older and moping all weekend when Arsenal loseI’m only alive because my wife and our friend who is a GP had a...

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Michael Rosen: ‘I am only finding out now how I was saved from coronavirus’

Home at last after seven weeks in intensive care, the poet pays tribute to ‘incredible’ NHS doctors and nursesCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageThe poet Michael Rosen is only...

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Poetic justice: black lives and the power of poetry

Leading black British poets including Linton Kwesi Johnson, Grace Nichols and Raymond Antrobus share their thoughts on protest, change and the trailblazers who inspired them. Introduction by Kadish...

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Poem of the week: Incendiary Art: Ferguson, 2014 by Patricia Smith

The US poet’s reaction to the 2014 police shooting of Michael Brown is a searing elegy for black lives destroyedIncendiary Art by Patricia Smith is published by Bloodaxe Books in the UK, and...

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Four new collections up for the Forward poetry prizes – review roundup

Postcolonial Love Poem by Natalie Diaz; Citadel by Martha Sprackland; Magnolia 木蘭 by Nina Mingya Powles; and The Air Year by Caroline BirdNatalie Diaz interview: ‘It is an important and dangerous time...

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Natalie Diaz: 'It is an important and dangerous time for language'

The Native American and Latinx poet’s Postcolonial Love Poem has been shortlisted for the Forward prize for best collectionFour new collections up for the 2020 Forward prizes – review roundupReading...

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Poem of the month: Prayer at Seventy by Vicki Feaver

God of thresholds, guideof souls between worlds,have mercy on me:God who, when I asked youif I could pass my last yearswith less anxiety,Continue reading...

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Poem of the week: Sic Vita by Henry David Thoreau

Before he became a pioneering ecological thinker, Thoreau was a poet and this youthful work contains the blueprint for his developmentSic Vita(“It is but thin soil where we stand; I have felt my roots...

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Benjamin Zephaniah: 'Coppers were standing on my back and I thought: OK, I’m...

The poet and novelist has had a turbulent lockdown, with two relatives lost to Covid-19 and George Floyd’s death bringing back memories of his cousin, Mikey Powell, who was killed by the police in...

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'Living legend' Linton Kwesi Johnson wins PEN Pinter prize

The pioneer of dub poetry has been hailed for his ‘political ferocity’ and ‘tireless scrutiny of history’Linton Kwesi Johnson: ‘It was a myth that immigrants didn’t want to fit into British society. We...

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Poetry book of the month: Antiemetic for Homesickness by Romalyn Ante – review

An NHS nurse pines for her native Philippines in her captivating debut as a poetRomalyn Ante is a nurse who came to the UK from the Philippines when she was 16 and is now based in Wolverhampton. This...

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