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The Saturday poem: Nightlife
by Jo ShapcottNightlifeDarkling, I listen. I can't hearthe ultrasonic tones and pitches,but I can catch screams and whistlescrick-cracks, ticks and chittersthe all-night calls of foraging mothersto...
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John Cooper Clarke – review
Palladium, LondonThe late Factory Records boss Anthony H Wilson was fond of opining that Shaun Ryder was the literary equal of Keats. By this lofty criterion, Salford's rival poet laureate, John Cooper...
View ArticleThe perfect number of children for literary success – in pictures
Is the pram in the hall the 'sombre enemy of good art' as Cyril Connolly once suggested, or do writers who match creation with procreation find more success? Take a look at our survey of 12 key...
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Why Tao Lin's Taipei can breathe new life into literature
Tao Lin's latest novel could bring energy and excitement of Alt Lit into the mainstream literary conversationTao Lin's novel Taipei could, as Richard Lynch-Smith suggests and as I argued recently in...
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Ovid's Heroines by Clare Pollard – review
Clare Pollard's ambition to update Ovid's Heroides – letters from Greek heroines to absent menfolk – has succeeded wittilyEven keen classicists might have given Ovid's Heroides a miss before now:...
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George Crabbe: The man behind Benjamin Britten
Amid the centenary celebrations for Benjamin Britten, we should remember the poet George Crabbe, whose tale of a cruel Aldeburgh fisherman inspired Peter GrimesDoes anyone read George Crabbe these...
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Red Doc› by Anne Carson – review
Anne Carson's highly original verse novel sends its hero on a poetic journey taking in everything from Len Deighton to flying cowsAnne Carson's Autobiography of Red, published in 1998, caused a...
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Poem of the week: The Man by Maitreyabandhu
A quiet portrait of isolated life uses coolly observed, ordinary details to build an unexpectedly suspenseful narrativeThis week's poem "The Man" is by the Buddhist writer Maitreyabandhu, whose first...
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Patrick Wakeling obituary
My father, Patrick Wakeling, who has died aged 84, was an innovative child psychiatrist and a keen poet. Patrick was one of a group of professionals who helped shape the child guidance clinics of the...
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Poster poems: Journeys | Billy Mills
Whether through crowded airports or in the silence of your imagination, this is a month to travel. Time to set off with a penSummer time and the living is mobile. Once July arrives, many of us have...
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The Crumb Road by Maitreyabandhu – review
Spending time with this collection's rich but melancholy modesty will enrich the reader's attentionMaitreyabandhu, as his name indicates, is a Buddhist, and his Way commends the value of mindfulness....
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The Saturday poem: The Point
by Rob A MackenzieThe point is to repeat. To repeat the point,the point is worth repeating, even if not:we need to stick by the manual, even if useless,to talk about how we think the things we've...
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Rebecca Goss: the mother whose poems for a lost baby see her tipped for prize
The pain of nursing and losing a sick baby inspired the poet to write a collection which has earned her a place on the Forward poetry prize shortlistRebecca Goss knew that locking up an empty house and...
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Forward poetry prizes highlight 'powerful year for poetry'
Featuring work from big and tiny presses, the nominees were hailed by chair of judges Jeanette Winterson for 'lit-up living language'The shortlists for the 2013 Forward poetry prizes have been...
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Poem of the week: An Essay on Criticism by Alexander Pope
Whilst counselling restraint, Pope's famously stinging wit is here trained on targets that can still be seen todayThis week's choice is an extract from Part Three of Alexander Pope's An Essay on...
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Judging the Forward prizes for poetry: my verdict
Reading 162 collections, it was fascinating to compare the work – and to see whose lines stayed with meWhat's the best thing about judging the Forward prizes? Free books? Reassessing a poet you hadn't...
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Anarchy in Peterloo: Shelley's poem unmasked
In 1819, the Manchester Yeomanry drew their sabres and charged a crowd of demonstrators. As Maxine Peake prepares to perform Shelley's angry poem about the outrage, John Mullan deciphers its verses for...
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Rowan Williams releases poem promoting organ donation
'Host Organism', commissioned to encourage churches to back the practice, is about 'making new things possible'The former archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has added his voice to a campaign for...
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Letters: Unjust imprisonment of Shelley's poem
John Mullan's commentary on The Masque of Anarchy was a welcome and informative read (Anarchy in Peterloo, G2, 9 July) and it's great that the poem itself is available online. If only this were the...
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Jim Causley: Cyprus Well – review
(Folk Police/Proper)Jim Causley is one of the finest, most easy-going singers in the British folk revival. His distant relative, Charles Causley, who died in 2003, was one of the most popular British...
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