What are the best poems about football? | The Knowledge
Plus: Zinedine Zidane and Cameroon feature in another slew of songs about specific gamesMail us your questions or tweet @TheKnowledge_GU“Are there many good poems about football?” wrote M Stapleton...
View ArticlePoem of the week: The Sparrows of Butyrka by Irina Ratushinskaya
The Soviet-era dissident writer’s defiant prison lyric has lost none of its immediacy The Sparrows of ButyrkaNow even the snow has grown sad –Let overwhelmed reason go,And let’s smoke our cigarettes...
View ArticleIn conversation with Benjamin Zephaniah and George the Poet - podcast
Benjamin Zephaniah and George the Poet aretwo of Britain’s most successful contemporary poets. They discuss why, despite being born a generation apart, their work is still exposing racial injustice...
View ArticleThe power of touch: Coordinates – a poem by Maria Popova
‘I watched the blood spill / its perfect pomegranate seeds / into the aluminium spaceship / of the kitchen sink ...’Welcome to the Guardian’s Power of Touch seriesI still wonder why the knife was in my...
View ArticleThe power of touch: Haunted – a poem by Dael Orlandersmith
‘Never been one much for skin on skin / or / never much cared for the skin I live in / but / NOW / The mind rolls back’Welcome to the Guardian’s Power of Touch seriesI’ve never really been one for...
View ArticleThe power of touch: Once, in November – a poem by Anis Mojgani
‘Your hand to my face / thumb upon my cheek / palm cupping my jaw / touching my skin like a silk to dress yourself in’Welcome to the Guardian’s Power of Touch seriesYou get into the shower and ask Will...
View ArticleRevealed: how a Parisian sex worker stole the heart of poet EE Cummings
Previously unseen letters show that the wartime romance was much more than a casual fling, and may even have inspired the American’s later worksHe was one of the 20th century’s most famous American...
View ArticleIn brief: The Family Clause; Anti-Social; My Name Is Why – review
A Swedish family at war, tales from the Asbo frontline, and an affecting memoir of brutality and hopeThe Family ClauseJonas Hassen KhemiriHarvill Secker, £16.99, pp320A man dreads the arrival of his...
View ArticleIvor Novello awards 2020: Dave, Kate Tempest and Stormzy among nominees
Behind-the-scenes talents Dan Carey, Jimmy Napes and Jamie Hartman join Kate Tempest with a pair of nominations each in UK songwriting awardsRace, sex, and self-worth are some of the topics explored by...
View ArticlePoem of the week: On First Knowing You’re a Teacher by Peter Kahn
The classroom’s unpredictable demands provide surprisingly poetical inspirationOn First Knowing You’re a TeacherRobert’s not coming in, my boss tells me.I’m sitting sweating in a windowless office,a...
View Article'Nature was etched in Britten's music': the birdwatching composer
Mixing Britten’s folksongs with poetry and soundscapes, soprano Marci Meth took inspiration from the composer himself to create an album inspired by and embedded in the countryside that he lovedThere’s...
View ArticleFour-year-old lands book deal for his 'astonishing' poetry
Nadim Shamma-Sourgen’s words, evoking a ‘whole world full of hugs’, were spotted by the writer Kate Clanchy and will be published next summerKeats’s first book of poetry was published when he was 21;...
View ArticleDmitri Smirnov obituary
Russian composer drawn to the words and images of William Blake who made Britain his home for three decadesThe composer Dmitri Smirnov, who has died aged 71 of Covid-19, had a deep affinity with the...
View ArticlePoem of the week: If I Were to Meet by Grace Nichols
Imagining an impossible encounter with herself as a child, the poet discreetly evokes the girl’s intense lifeIf I Were to MeetIf I were to meet the ghostof my childhood runningwith slipping...
View ArticleCovid-19 response is a matter of politics | Letter
Michael Rosen on the serious consequences of the government’s poor handling of the pandemicYour article (Lack of testing and PPE among key England Covid-19 mistakes, MPs told, 24 July) confirms that...
View ArticleLana Del Rey's poetry debut review – sometimes cliche, always solipsistic
Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass, released as an audiobook this week and in print in September, is a reminder of the singer’s strengths and shortcomingsLana Del Rey has a decided aesthetic: a...
View ArticleLana Del Rey: Violet Bent Backwards over the Grass review – poetry debut with...
(Interscope)The singer’s first audiobook-with-music shows skill but suffers from flowery wordplayThis being Lana Del Rey, the title track of her poetry-audiobook-with-music suggests some sordid...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Long Time a Child by Hartley Coleridge
Melancholy but without self-pity, this sonnet self-portrait is one of the finest of the Romantic periodLong Time a ChildLong time a child, and still a child, when years Had painted manhood on my cheek,...
View ArticlePoetry book of the month: How to Fly by Barbara Kingsolver – review
The novelist teaches lessons in miniature in this deft and entertaining collectionWhenever a novelist takes flight into poetry, one has, however unreasonably, misgivings – based on a received,...
View ArticleMaking poetry optional in GCSE English literature is out of tune with the times
Ofqual’s ruling comes at a time when more children than ever are reading and writing verseOfqual, the exams authority, has announced that next year schools won’t have to do all the components of...
View Article
