And did those feet: 10 walks inspired by famous poets
Matching rich verse with great scenery, these strolls follow in the footsteps of some of our greatest wordsmiths, from William Blake to Carol Ann DuffyYou can stride energetically across lonely crags,...
View ArticleThe Stasi Poetry Circle by Philip Oltermann review – paper spies
The strange true story of how East Germany’s secret service tried to win the cold war with verseThis book sounds like a quirky piece of fiction, to set beside The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie...
View ArticleThe best recent poetry – reviews roundup
Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head by Warsan Shire; Vinegar Hill by Colm Tóibín; Unexhausted Time by Emily Berry; Some Integrity by Padraig ReganBless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Composition by Howard Altmann
An authentic life story, in this account, would include what could not be recorded and what failed to happenCompositionIf I could tellthe story of my lifeit would be the branchdrawing its treeon the...
View ArticleMother’s Boy by Howard Jacobson review – a captivatingly melodramatic memoir
The writer’s account of his tortured journey to adulthood is wildly lacking in proportion, and all the better for itCan you die of not writing a novel, asks Howard Jacobson towards the end of this...
View ArticleTop 10 books about suffering artists | Tom de Freston
From Max Porter’s vision of Francis Bacon’s last days to Heather Clark’s fresh look at Sylvia Plath, these works complicate our understanding of the links between pain and artDuring a psychotic...
View Article‘Infertility stung me’: Black motherhood and me
I assumed I would be part of the first generation to have full agency over my reproduction – but I was wrongI detest clinics. Sometimes, it’s the forms I have to fill out, other times it’s the harsh...
View ArticleMadeline Miller: ‘Reading Ayn Rand was like being dipped in slime’
The author of The Song of Achilles on discovering TS Eliot, her childhood love of James Herriot and the subversive genius of Chinua AchebeMy earliest reading memoryI was six years old, and sitting in...
View ArticleResistance by Simon Armitage
Here is the laureate’s poem about the invasion of Ukraine, written in solidarity with those under fireContinue reading...
View ArticlePoet laureate Simon Armitage writes Ukraine war poem Resistance
Armitage calls his piece a ‘refracted version of what is coming at us in obscene images through the news’Read Resistance by Simon ArmitageThe poet laureate, Simon Armitage, has written a poem about the...
View ArticleIn Somerset did Kubla Khan: Coleridge manuscript returns to poem’s source
Taunton welcomes handwritten version of work poet said came to him after drug-induced reverie in nearby farmhouseMore than two centuries after Samuel Taylor Coleridge awoke from a drug-addled reverie –...
View ArticleKae Tempest: ‘I was living with this boiling hot secret in my heart’
Speaking for the first time about coming out as non-binary, the hip-hop poet and playwright recalls the pain of adolescence, and how lyricism, rapping and music provided a lifelineKae Tempest is...
View Article‘It’s just love in there, it’s nuts’: freedom and verse at the Bankstown...
Australia’s biggest event of its kind returned in a raucous testament to how people can come togetherGet our free news app; get our morning email briefingAs the rain batters the Bankstown Arts Centre...
View ArticlePoem of the week: For Nothing Tender About It by Carl Phillips
An enigmatic lyric reflects on the relationship of memory and shameFor Nothing Tender About ItIf as shame is to memory, so too desire,then is this desire, this cloak of shadows,that I wrap close around...
View ArticleUnexhausted Time by Emily Berry review – language that defies all limits
These strange, intimate poems blur the boundaries between waking and dreaming, past and futureIn Emily Berry’s third collection, Unexhausted Time, nothing is off limits and limits themselves are...
View ArticleVerses in solidarity with those under fire | Brief letters
A poem for Ukraine | Artists turned war heroes | Swearing at snails | On the road in Herefordshire | Zaghari-Ratcliffe freedThank you to Simon Armitage for his moving poem, and to Harriet Sherwood for...
View Article‘Rivers run through us’: Willem Dafoe and Robert Macfarlane on why they made...
Made by the same team that shot Mountain, including director Jennifer Peedom, this stunning documentary captures the great power and beauty of rivers – and how vulnerable they are to a modern world...
View ArticleTS Eliot’s wife Vivienne died in an asylum. Steven Carroll decided to free her
Over four novels, the award-winning Australian author has picked apart Eliot and his relationships with women – but felt moved to give the poet’s first wife a happier endGet our weekend culture and...
View ArticleMark Beeson obituary
My friend and colleague Mark Beeson, who has died aged 67 of amyloidosis, was an ecologist, playwright, poet and theatre director based in Devon. MED Theatre was the rural community theatre company he...
View ArticleMarcus Reichert obituary
My friend Marcus Reichert, who has died aged 73, was an American painter and neo-noir film director who spent much of his life in Britain.Marcus’s paintings reflected a darkly sophisticated vision. He...
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