Pure poetry: Ralph Fiennes on stage – in pictures
As Ralph Fiennes tours his solo stage version of TS Eliot’s Four Quartets, look back at some of his greatest stage performances, from Shaw and Shakespeare to The Play What I WroteContinue reading...
View ArticleSexual congress, cigarettes and David Bowie: the Wigmore Hall’s hidden history
The world famous London concert hall celebrates its 120th birthday today. Its artistic director picks 12 of the hall’s greatest – and most unexpected – momentsThe Wigmore Hall, in Wigmore Street,...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Homage to the Square by Tishani Doshi
This spiralling meditation inspired by the artist Josef Albers has a quietly political thrustHomage to the Square“I still like to believe that the square is a human invention. And that tickles me. So...
View ArticleLiz Phair’s teenage obsessions: ‘I wanted to be a 6,000-year-old vampire with...
The singer-songwriter on watching The Hunger 60 times, how EE Cummings inspired her lyrics and discovering magic mushrooms at a Grateful Dead showGrowing up [in Winnetka, Illinois, near Chicago], I was...
View ArticleThe best recent poetry – review roundup
The Resurrectionists by John Challis; Mother Muse by Lorna Goodison; Away from Me by Caleb Klaces; Rotten Days in Late Summer by Ralf Webb; and Poetry & Covid-19, edited by Anthony Caleshu and Rory...
View ArticleSummer books: Bernardine Evaristo, Hilary Mantel, Richard Osman and more on...
Authors share the books they have enjoyed reading this year, including a hilarious dark comedy, poetry and a study of mystery illnessesSummer reading: the 50 hottest new books everyone should read...
View ArticleAndrew McMillan: pandemonium review – steeped in suffering
The poet reflects on death, depression and guilt with a clear eye in this troubling and fascinating collectionThe title pandemonium seems wrong for a collection as collected as this. For although...
View ArticleForward poetry prizes shortlist former young people’s laureate Caleb Femi
Poor is in line for the Felix Dennis first collection award, while the contenders for best collection are praised for their ‘limitless’ ambitionCaleb Femi, the former young people’s laureate for...
View ArticleDo Norfolk birds speak Punjabi? Mona Arshi, the poet transcribing bird calls
The lawyer-turned-poet spent a year ‘possessed’ by bird sounds – and found some chirped in her childhood tongue. So what are lapwings and godwits saying?The pandemic has brought birdsong to the ears of...
View ArticlePrue Leith, Lemn Sissay and Alison Moyet recognised in Queen’s birthday honours
Key figures in UK arts, culture and sport rewarded in list dominated by heroes and heroines of pandemicThe Great British Bake Off judge Prue Leith, the poet Lemn Sissay and the singer-songwriter Alison...
View ArticleWas Joe Biden trolling Britain with his choice of poetry – or choosing his...
You can tell a lot about a leader from the poems they quote, as the president’s speech to US air force personnel proved this week, writes Zoe WilliamsI woke up the other day to a load of Americans...
View ArticleRoads taken: the Gloucestershire footpaths that were the making of Robert Frost
We follow the trails trodden a century ago by a band of revolutionary poets who fell for this corner of EnglandThe cows clocked us as we started across a neighbouring field, and by the time we reached...
View ArticlePoem of the week: My Mother says No on Bloomsday by Mary O’Donnell
A daughter wonders whether her elderly mother’s reluctance to submit to her care might not be turning away from life, but affirming itMy Mother says No on BloomsdayIt is not easy, it is not easyto...
View ArticleKei Miller selects the UK’s 10 best emerging writers
The awardwinning poet and writer puts together an ‘unapologetically, triumphantly, diverse’ list of talents at the start of promising careersThe brief from National Centre for Writing and British...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Norfolk Sprung Thee … by Henry Howard
Howard’s 16th-century sonnet to the man who was fatally wounded saving his life remains full of palpable feelingNorfolk Sprung Thee, Lambeth Holds Thee DeadNorfolk sprung thee, Lambeth holds thee...
View ArticleWill This House Last Forever? by Xanthi Barker review – a daughter’s attempt...
In this moving memoir shot through with love and pain, the author considers why Sebastian Barker chose poetry over parenthoodThe father of this book’s subtitle (On Losing a Father) is – was – the poet...
View ArticleOutlier review – the spirit of Kerouac reaches the West Country in superb drama
Bristol Old Vic and onlineMalaika Kegode embraces audiences with her warm, honest poetry, backed by musicians Jakabol – but her true-life tale quickly takes a dark turnA sense of homeliness pervades...
View ArticleBackstory to Polish nationalism | Letters
Michael Kowalewski on the reasons for the rise of illiberalism in PolandI cannot speak for Hungary, but the very nuanced account of Polish and Hungarian illiberalism (The long read, 24 June) omits some...
View ArticleAnne Enright on The Green Road: ‘I set out to write another King Lear’
The author on writing her novel a cottage in County Clare, and letting her scattered characters take on lives of their ownIn 2012 we took a long rent on a cottage in County Clare with a sea view that...
View ArticlePoem of the week: from War of the Beasts and the Animals by Maria Stepanova
Ranging across Russian history, this work brings the cost of war into stark and tragic focusWar of the Beasts and the Animals*Translated by Sasha DugdaleRelated: 'Love’s labours should be lost': Maria...
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