Poem of the week: Silence by Lotte Kramer
The quiet pastoral of a river scene carries strong undercurrents of traumatic historical memoryA footnote to this week's poem by Lotte Kramer (published in The Rialto, No. 80, Spring-Summer 2014) tells...
View ArticleFelix Dennis obituary
One of three editors in the 1971 Oz obscenity trial who went on to become a hugely successful magazine and book publisherFelix Dennis cackling laugh, roistering humour, ribald in appetite, loyal and...
View ArticleFelix Dennis: poet, pioneer, party planner and prolific planter
Oz publisher 'who lived life on his own terms' combined entrepreneurial gifts with unrepentant hippiedomA poem with the enigmatic title Sign to Be Erected at the Gate to Argyle Wood sums up in many...
View ArticleNorman Willis obituary
Leader of the TUC during one of the most traumatic periods in trade union historyNo trade union leader since the second world war had to cope with such a catalogue of disasters, nor become so embroiled...
View ArticleMrs Parker and the Vicious Circle - does it get under Dorothy's skin?
This Dorothy Parker biopic captures the enigmatic nature of its subject well but fails to stitch chunks of her sublime writing together into a satisfying narrativeMrs Parker and the Vicious Circle...
View ArticleDylan Thomas's drinking ditty to be published for first time
Impromptu verse written in London pub is 'in the vein' of Under Milk Wood and likely to fetch five-figure sumAn impromptu drinking ditty, dashed off in pencil by Dylan Thomas while seated at a London...
View ArticleShow of Hands: Centenary Words & Music of the Great War review
(Mighty Village)Music and poetry can be a powerful combination. The Show of Hands singer-songwriter Steve Knightley and the actor Jim Carter have known each other since the 80s, and are now joined by...
View ArticleLandmarks of summer literature
John Dugdale rounds up a selection of summer reads to celebrate the arrival of the seasonSummer literature doesn't stop with Sonnet 18, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Le Grand Meaulnes, Ulysses, The Great...
View ArticleErnst Stadler: the German war poet's last post
Stadler, like other German poets, responded with enthusiasm to the outbreak of the first world war, but there was no poetry to be found in the trenchesOn 31 July 1914, Ernst Stadler had to change his...
View ArticleParents, pick poetry during Children's Book Week | @guardianletters
With next week being Children's Book Week, I would like to put in a word for poetry in the hope that parents will pick up a book of poems at bedtime. Evidence shows that many children first discover...
View ArticleThe Saturday poem: The Electrification of Beth Shalom
by Ruth PadelI am looking too hard, or this scene is looking too hardat me. Turn of the century and the last Chief Rabbi of Creteis standing by seven naked bulbs, the first electric lightin town. What...
View ArticlePoem of the week: A Birthmother's Catechism by Carrie Etter
In a haunting refrain of imagined questions and answers, a mother speculates how her son, adopted as a baby, feels about the parent he has never knownImagined Sons by Carrie Etter consists of a title...
View ArticleDermot Healy, 'uncompromisingly brilliant' poet and novelist, dies aged 66
Tributes paid to Irish author acclaimed as a unique figure 'in the tradition of Samuel Beckett and Flann O'Brien'The Irish author Dermot Healy, whose poetry and novels drew him fans from Seamus Heaney...
View ArticleGuardian first book award 2014: add your nomination
One of the titles on the longlist for this year's prize for literary debuts is up to readers. Please nominate the best new work you've read in the last 12 monthsThe cupboards are full to bursting, the...
View ArticleDermot Healy obituary
Author and poet who wrote A Goat's Song, one of the great Irish novels of recent timesThe Irish writer Dermot Healy, who has died aged 66, was once described by Seamus Heaney as "the heir to Patrick...
View ArticlePoet Lavinia Greenlaw: Why I love the artist Eva Hesse
When Lavinia Greenlaw looks at the works of Eva Hesse, she is reminded of how a poem comes to herI had known about Eva Hesse's work for years, but the moment I really paid attention was when I visited...
View ArticleWhy should young people find out the first world war?
Ex-war reporter turned children's writer Rowena House has witnessed the horrors of conflict first hand, but nothing shocked her as much as reading Wilfred Owen's poetry when she was at school. In this...
View ArticleFifty greatest modern love poems list embraces 30 different countries
Global reach of experts' new selection ranges over last 50 years, from Scotland to Saudi Arabia, Korea to KurdistanThere's no "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways", or "Shall I compare thee to a...
View ArticlePoems for George VI by John Masefield
Three unseen works written by the poet laureate for the newly-crowned monarchNews: John Masefield's unseen tributes to King George VI revealedSong of the Birds for the Queen's MajestyThe April sends...
View ArticlePoet laureate John Masefield's unseen tributes to George VI revealed
Handwritten work given privately to the recently-crowned king made available for the first timeRead the poems hereThree unknown poems by John Masefield, which were written out by hand by the poet...
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