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Poem of the week: To Mistress Margaret Hussey by John Skelton

An implausibly perfect list of womanly virtues is kept afloat with genial buoyancyMerry Margaret,As midsummer flower,Gentle as a falconOr hawk of the tower:Continue reading...

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Seán Day-Lewis obituary

My husband, Seán Day-Lewis, who has died aged 90, felt himself a journalist from an early age. As a small boy in Lyme Regis, Dorset, he turned his back on the sea and read the newspaper. He later wrote...

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[To] The Last [Be] Human by Jorie Graham review – where angels fear to write

The Americanpoetfaces the future anguished but unblinking in this magnificent collection of her four most recent booksFour of Jorie Graham’s most recent collections have been brought together here and...

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Where to start with: Langston Hughes

The leader of the Harlem Renaissance wrote poems and plays, short stories and children’s books. If you’re new to Hughes’ work, here are some good places to beginPoet, writer and activist Langston...

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The best recent poetry – review roundup

Days Like These by Brian Bilston; A Little Resurrection by Selina Nwulu; England’s Green by Zaffar Kunial; After Sylvia, edited by Ian Humphreys and Sarah Corbett; Journeys Across Breath by Stephen...

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Cool, candid and sometimes angry, New Zealand’s laureate wants to make poetry...

After years of forging his own path on the literary scene, Chris Tse doesn’t mind taking poetic licence with expectations Fan of Taylor Swift, lover of glam-rock fashion – Chris Tse isn’t your typical...

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Tony Mitton obituary

My friend Tony Mitton, the popular and prolific children’s writer, has died of leukaemia at the age of 71.He was born in Tripoli, Libya, to Stanley, a professional soldier who had risen from private to...

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Poem of the week: Mist by Maurice Rutherford

A haunting poem in which a mysterious backstory of private loss is bound with nature in a thickening mist and an absence of birdsThought is reluctant today,tentative for what we knowbut cannot clearly...

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National Book Awards 2022: Gayl Jones, Sharon Olds, Imani Perry among finalists

The winners of the prestigious US awards, in five categories, will be announced in a ceremony in NovemberGayl Jones, Imani Perry and Sharon Olds are among the finalists for the 2022 National Book...

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Top 10 books about Nigeria | Chigozie Obioma

Fiction, poetry and history from an extraordinary country of great wealth and deep poverty, of huge promise and extremes of despairNigeria is an extraordinary country. On the one hand, it is a...

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Alabaster dePlume review – a rabble-rousing, spiritual jazz adventure

Komedia, BrightonSpoken word and ambient improvisations move from abstraction to anti-fascist anthems in the celebrated bandleader’s inspiring setAlabaster dePlume does not know what he is doing. He...

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The Waste Land: A Biography of a Poem by Matthew Hollis – genesis of a...

Hollis brilliantly sifts through the tendrils of TS Eliot’s unhappiness and shows how, with help from friends, he broke through his tortured silence to create an era-defining poemEven if you flinch at...

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Poem of the week: I Am Not A Falconer by Caroline Bird

An abandoned lover tries not to take their distress too seriouslyI am standing in this fieldHolding my glove in the airShould I whistle?I can’t whistleWill she get lost?Take shelter in a charming...

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A moment that changed me: ‘A jail term for GBH felt like the end of my life –...

Locked up at 21, I discovered I was creative and could express myself through words. Now I am a poet, a broadcaster, an author – things I’d never have believed possibleIt all started in 2008, when I...

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TS Eliot prize announces a ‘shapeshifting’ shortlist

With a record number of entries, half of the ten shortlisted books are debut collections that the judges describe as ‘unflinching in their explorations of love and grief, brutality and desire’Five...

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From Romantics to 21st century radicals: Coleridge, Shelley and the roots of...

Communes are on the rise, but we’ve been here before – more than 200 years ago Samuel Taylor Coleridge and his poet friends were pinning their hopes on the collective goodFriends who have lived in...

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Poem of the week: The Revolt of Mother by Alice Duer Miller

Man’s claim to be expert in all things – including how to be a woman – is dismantled with devastating sarcasm(“Every true woman feels …” – Speech of almost any Congressman)Continue reading...

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The Waste Land reviewed: ‘so much waste paper’ – archive, 31 October 1923

31 October 1923: Charles Powell finds TS Eliot’s poem a ‘mad medley’ and wishes it was written in demotic EnglishThe Waste Land. By TS Eliot. Richmond; Hogarth Press. Pp 35. 4s,6d,netThis poem is 430...

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Yomi Ṣode: ‘The last thing I want to be is a preacher’

The poet and performer on his debut poetry collection, drawing on Caravaggio and the concept of ‘manorism’Yomi Ṣode is a writer, performer and teacher, who was born in Nigeria and moved to London at...

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Poem of the week: George Moses Horton, Myself by George Moses Horton

The poet, who lived most of his life in slavery, uses his own name to title a stirring hymn to freedomI feel myself in needOf the inspiring strains of ancient lore,My heart to lift, my empty mind to...

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