Bedouin of the London Evening review Rosemary Tonkss lost poems
Influenced by Baudelaire and Rimbaud, the late poet made her name in the 60s then disappeared from the world of literature thankfully, her poems are backThe photograph of Rosemary Tonks on the cover of...
View ArticleThe Saturday poem: Should lanterns shine
by Dylan ThomasShould lanterns shine, the holy face,Caught in an octagon of unaccustomed light,Would wither up, and any boy of loveLook twice before he fell from grace.The features in their private...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Hydromaniac by Rosemary Tonks
A poem that first appeared in 1967 explores the thirst of desire, necessary as wine, water and gin-fizzRosemary Tonkss two collections of poetry excited many young English readers in the 1960s. So...
View ArticleMichael Hofmann Q&A post your questions now
Michael Hofmann is an essayist, poet and translator of over 70 books. Join him on Thursday 30 October at 3pm GMT to ask anything you want to know about writing, translating and the power of...
View Article100 years of Dylan Thomas quiz
Welsh wordsmith Dylan Thomas was born on October 27 1914. Celebrate the 100th birthday of the author of Under Milk Wood by testing your knowledge of his life and work Cerys Matthews on setting Thomas's...
View ArticlePoetry Brothel puts the bawd in bard
A party where you pay to have verse read to you in a bordello-style setting is packing in the punters. Are poetry and sex work really comparable?I am in the back room of the Backroom cocktail bar in...
View ArticlePoster poems: clouds
As changeable on the page as in the skies above, theyve inspired countless poets now share your poetic experiments in cloud-spottingLiving on the ocean-facing side of an island in the North Atlantic,...
View ArticleBBC NOW/Llewellyn review an insightful Dylan Thomas celebration
Prichard-Jones Hall, BangorDaniel Joness Fourth Symphony, composed in memory of the poet, was the centrepiece for this evening of striking and sensitive responses to Thomass workIn the week of Dylan...
View ArticleHold Your Own review powerful poetry from Kate Tempest
She may have been pipped to the Mercury prize, but her latest collection is a winnerAt the heart of Kate Tempests latest work is a captivating dichotomy. On the one hand, she is the soul of modernity:...
View ArticleScottish poet tastes success in Stephen Spender prize for poetry in translation
Ian Galbraith wins the open category of the annual competition with his rendition of Quince Jelly by the Hamburg poet Jan WagnerIt was Stephen Spender, translator of Schiller, Rilke and Cavafy, who...
View ArticleThe Saturday poem: The First Song
by Thomas Luxwas sung after the first stone was thrown at a beast,after a spear in a mans handbrought down a pile of meat.Of course we sang of that!We hardly had a language and we sang.We sang the...
View ArticleE-readers: the perfect home for border-crossing poetry
A collaboration between a British poet, an Italian architect and a Germany publisher demonstrates the pan-global power of ebooksIn her introduction to Alessandro Bava and Harry Burkes City of God,...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Three Harps by Vernon Watkins
This lyrical work by the Welsh poet is a fine elegy on the death of his close friend Dylan ThomasThe poem cannot live until it has been willing to die, Vernon Watkins declared in The Second Pressure on...
View ArticleDylan Thomass list of Robert Browning poems is found on back of an envelope
An enigmatic list of 12 Browning poems scrawled by the Welsh poet on the back of an unsent envelope addressed to Osbert Sitwell has been discovered by a rare book dealersIts the back-of-an-envelope...
View ArticleAndrew Motion: don't hurry, be happy
The path to happiness is long and winding, says our former poet laureate, and it takes you through some very dark placesIn my sixth form at school we had weekly discussions about topics that were meant...
View ArticleBirds in literature quiz
In the week Helen Macdonald won the Samuel Johnson prize with her memoir, H is for Hawk, we take to the air with this quiz about our feathered friends in literature. But can you tell a hawk from a...
View ArticleSet Fire to the Stars review catastrophe looms as Dylan Thomas arrives in US
The story of how the poet was lured to the States and set off down the road to ruin fails to engageThis odd, undeveloped movie is about the minor American critic and poet John Malcolm Brinnin, who in...
View ArticleReaders recommend: songs about peace | Peter Kimpton
In a week full of remembrance of the first world war centenary, nominate music all about what we hope comes after the fightingWhat is it about human nature that, just as in the physical life cycles of...
View ArticleBehind the Mask: The Life of Vita Sackville-West review
Is this the biography that the brilliant gardener, once-popular author and masterly self-inventor deserves?Vita Sackville-West, who wanted terribly to be remembered as a poet, but is better known for...
View ArticlePaper Aeroplane: Selected Poems 19892014 by Simon Armitage review What...
A timely retrospective for a soaring talent of modern British verseHow did it get so late? wonders Simon Armitage in Paper Aeroplane, his new selected poems. Its a fair question. The recent fanfare of...
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