Caleb Femi: 'Henceforth I’m solely preoccupied with being a merchant of joy'
The poet, film-maker, photographer and former young people’s laureate for London talks about growing up on the North Peckham estate and his debut collection, PoorEvery Monday when Caleb Femi was a...
View ArticleJohn Lithgow: 'Trump keeps on surviving. Karma never quite wins'
The actor on playing Churchill, almost becoming Frasier Crane, and writing satirical poems about the US presidentJohn Lithgow, the self-described “professional actor” and “amateur satirist”, has won...
View ArticlePoem of the week: from The Wanderer by Christopher Brennan
This intense account of a lonely winter journey owes much to Milton and German RomanticismFrom The WandererThe land I came thro’ last was dumb with night,a limbo of defeated glory, a ghost:for wreck of...
View ArticleVal Warner obituary
Acclaimed poet, editor and scholar responsible for the rehabilitation of the ‘forgotten’ poet Charlotte MewVal Warner, who has died aged 74, was a gifted poet, an editor, scholar, translator, teacher...
View ArticleThe best recent poetry – review roundup
Poor by Caleb Femi; The Actual by Inua Ellams; Arrow by Sumita Chakraborty; and Gigantic Cinema: A Weather Anthology edited by Alice Oswald and Paul KeeganIt’s rare for a book of poems to repeatedly...
View ArticleMargaret Atwood reads her new poem Dearly - audio
Margaret Atwood explores memory, loss and the passage of time in the title poem from her latest collection, Dearly.Continue reading...
View ArticleCaught in time’s current: Margaret Atwood on grief, poetry and the past four...
In an exclusive new poem and essay Margaret Atwood reflects on the passing of time and how to create lasting art in a rapidly changing worldRead Dearly by Margaret AtwoodI can say with a measure of...
View Article‘Don’t read Clockwork Orange – it’s a foul farrago,’ wrote Burgess
The great novelist saw himself as a poet, and newly found stanzas show him berating his own bestseller in versePreviously unpublished love poems written by Anthony Burgess to each of his two wives have...
View ArticlePoem of the week: On a Pebbly Beach by John Birtwhistle
A family game provides the occasion to consider some aesthetic principlesOn a Pebbly BeachWhen our family was youngand the children took off over the stones like little dogsas we followed in our...
View ArticleJoe Biden's love for Seamus Heaney is evidence of a soul you can trust |...
The president-elect has often quoted Heaney’s poetry, with his reading of The Cure at Troy going viral after his election victoryI didn’t fall for Joe Biden until I learned that he loves the poetry of...
View ArticleNandita Ghose obituary
My sister, Nandita Ghose, who has died aged 57, was a playwright, poet and producer for BBC Audio Drama and the World Service.Nanda was strongly inspired by her dual Indian and British heritage, and...
View Article'Treasure trove' of unseen Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney writing found
Affectionate friendship between the two poets and artist Barrie Cooke, united by a love of fishing, revealed in a collection of correspondence that was believed lostA “treasure trove” of unseen poems...
View ArticleOn my radar: Jay Bernard's cultural highlights
The poet on logic puzzles, sweetcorn ribs and listening to Idles on repeatSteve McQueen answers questions from celebrity admirersJay Bernard (who uses the non-binary “they”) is a British artist, writer...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Now that you are not-you by Rosie Garland
A very modern, secular kind of elegy reflects on death with a surprising lightnessNow that you are not-youand have satisfied the finger-check of pulseat throat and wristear to the chestmirror to the...
View ArticleNational Book Awards: Charles Yu and Malcolm X biography take top prizes
Yu, writer of short stories and television, won best fiction for Interior Chinatown, his inventive, ‘gut punch’ second novelCharles Yu, a writer whose talents range from short stories to episodes of...
View ArticleArts world dismayed at fate of London home of Rimbaud and Verlaine
Georgian house where infamous French poets lodged was to become an arts centre – but its owner has had a change of heart It was the London home of the 19th-century Decadent poets Arthur Rimbaud and...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Blowing Smoke by Nii Ayikwei Parkes
A reflective love poem captures an expanding range of intimate associationsBlowing Smokefor the curve of dismountsoContinue reading...
View ArticleDearly by Margaret Atwood review – the experience of a lifetime
Dedicated to her partner, Atwood’s first poetry collection in more than 10 years is wry and entertainingMargaret Atwood does not do nostalgia. This collection of poems, her first in over 10 years, is a...
View ArticleCosta book awards: Susanna Clarke nominated for second novel after 16-year wait
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell author picked for Piranesi, alongside Denise Mina, Julian Barnes and the late Eavan Boland, in prizes for ‘enjoyable’ booksSixteen years after she published her debut,...
View ArticleBritish Library apologises for linking Ted Hughes to slave trade
The poet had been wrongly included among more than 300 figures whose collections were associated with wealth obtained from colonial violenceThe British Library has apologised to Carol Hughes, the widow...
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