Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman review – symphony of hope and solidarity
This powerful debut collection from the youngest inaugural poet in US history explores collective memory and the current pandemicWhat happens when words spoken on Capitol Hill make us shiver? Amanda...
View ArticleThe Greeks by Roderick Beaton review – a global history
This survey reflects the depth and complexity of Greece, a small country with a world-conquering ethosWhen the Greek poet George Seferis rose to give his speech on being awarded the 1963 Nobel prize...
View ArticleGrace Nichols’ ‘pioneering voice’ wins her Queen’s gold medal for poetry
Poet laureate Simon Armitage, who chaired this year’s award committee, said the Guyanese writer’s works ‘echo with the rhymes and rhythms of her family and ancestors’The Guyanese poet Grace Nichols...
View ArticleMark Huband obituary
Foreign correspondent respected for his work in west Africa and the Middle East who went on to write books and poemsMark Huband, who has died aged 58 of pancreatitis and multiple organ failure, built a...
View ArticleInauguration poet Amanda Gorman ‘preserves the memory of a pandemic’ in new...
The writer who shot to fame when Joe Biden was sworn in as president has published her response to Covid-19 • Scroll down to read Fugue, a poem from Gorman’s new collectionAmanda Gorman, who became the...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Pool by Rowan Williams
Tadpoles growing to reach the terrors of land suggest the universal journey of life towards mortalityPoolA twig breaks. Promptly, obliginglystaging the haiku, one or two new frogsplop in the water,...
View ArticleJacky Flurscheim obituary
My friend Jacky Flurscheim, who has died aged 81, was the poetry editor at Oxford University Press from 1976 until 1998, when, to her grief and fury, the list was unceremoniously closed. For many years...
View ArticleA life in quotes: bell hooks
The groundbreaking feminist critic, poet, and intellectual on love, feminism, patriarchy, white supremacy, forgiveness and the power of artbell hooks, author and activist, dies aged 69Continue reading...
View ArticleThe best recent poetry – review roundup
The Poems by Derek Mahon; Far District by Ishion Hutchinson; Stones by Kevin Young; and Like A Tree, Walking by Vahni CapildeoThe Poemsby Derek Mahon(Gallery Press, €22.50)With Derek Mahon’s death in...
View ArticleThe Guardian view on Dorothy Wordsworth: a rare achievement | Editorial
Two-and-a-half centuries after her birth the writer – and sister of the more famous William – still has much to teach usShe has been described as “probably the most remarkable and the most...
View ArticlePoem of the week: The Jailbird by Maurice Riordan
A sparky, theologically free-range consideration of the soulI’ve this gut feeling that inside somewhere,perched, so to speak, in the innermost woodof my body or brain, on mute since childhooda...
View ArticleTop 10 Christmas poems | Allie Esiri
Poets from Thomas Hardy to TS Eliot and Wendy Cope articulate the wonder – and dread – of the festive seasonWe turn to poems at the big moments in a year, as poetry is the language we reach for when...
View ArticleThe teenager’s poem that reveals the cruel reality of life in modern Britain...
To policymakers, poet Giovanni Rose would be just a statistic. But like everyone ignored by politicians, he is so much moreWhat if a statistic could speak its own truth? What if a stereotype could...
View ArticleA seasonal celebration of Dorothy Wordsworth | Letters
Readers share their views on the talent and values of the other great writer in the Wordsworth family, William’s sister DorothyDorothy Wordsworth’s rare achievement as the other great writer in the...
View ArticleOur song was Christmas No 1 and we wanted to watch it on TV. So we knocked on...
It was Christmas Eve 1968 and Lily the Pink by the Scaffold was top of the charts. We were a long way from home - and desperate to see our performanceSome readers may remember, perhaps with a certain...
View ArticleNonfiction to look out for in 2022
From studies of grief to memoirs from Melvyn Bragg and Jarvis Cocker, along with Norman Scott’s account of a very English scandal, here are the titles coming your way next year• Fiction to look out for...
View ArticlePoem of the week: The Age of Cardboard and String by Charles Boyle
A machine for eating oranges, humming new tunes and flying to the moon may be a bit less innocent than children’s playThe Age of Cardboard and StringIt is a machine for eating oranges.It is a machine...
View ArticleCall Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman review – vigilant, truthful
The young poet who electrified Joe Biden’s inauguration has produced an impressive, if uneven, first collectionFrom the moment Amanda Gorman started to speak at President Biden’s inauguration, on 20...
View ArticleHow I was touched by a poetic cry for help from a black teenager | Letters
Former teacher Joan Lewis on a moving poem from a pupil 50 years ago, and Judy Cowgill on how the odds continue to be stacked against the have-notsHowever moved I am by Aditya Chakrabortty’s article...
View Article2022 in books: highlights for the year ahead
New writing from Ali Smith, Marlon James, Elena Ferrante and Jarvis Cocker – a taste of good things to comeContinue reading...
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