Adrian Henri and the painter-poets who turned the Mersey Beat into an art
Paintings, posters and ephemera from Liverpool at the time of the Beatles show the city’s 60s scene rivalled New York for creativityIn 1965, Liverpool was “the centre of human consciousness in the...
View ArticleGreat country walks: Tetford, Lincolnshire
Stroll through the countryside that inspired former poet laureate Alfred Lord TennysonDifficulty: ModerateDistance: 6.3 milesTypical duration: 3 hoursStart and finish: St Mary’s Church, TetfordMap: OS...
View ArticleRod McKuen, poet and songwriter, dies aged 81
One of the best-selling poets in history, the prolific force in popular culture captivated those who did not ordinarily like poetryRod McKuen, the husky-voiced “King of Kitsch” whose music, verse and...
View Article‘Drowned in a sea of salt’ Blake Morrison on the literature of the east coast
Writers from Crabbe to Sebald have been drawn to the fragile beauty of the east coast of Britain – and have immortalised it in words• Hear Blake Morrison read his poem CovehitheSixty-two years ago...
View ArticleThe Saturday poem: Covehithe
by Blake Morrison• Hear Blake Morrison read CovehitheThe tides go in and outBut the cliffs are stuck in reverse:Back across the fields they creep,to the graves of Covehithe church.From church to...
View ArticleHas the mystery of Shakespeare’s Sonnets finally been solved?
New evidence points to identity of enigmatic ‘Mr WH’ to whom the poems are dedicatedSome of the finest, most quoted verses in the English language were dedicated to him, and for centuries literary...
View ArticleYoung Eliot: From St Louis to The Waste Land by Robert Crawford – digested read
The biography of the dancing, smiling, velocipede-riding future poet is condensed to a more rhythmic 700 wordsTS Eliot was never young. That, at least, is the impression many readers get both from his...
View ArticleRod McKuen obituary
Singer, songwriter and poet whose work was covered by Frank Sinatra, Madonna and Johnny CashRod McKuen, who has died aged 81, was, at his peak, a cultural phenomenon whose massive success as a...
View ArticlePoem of the week: a selection from Verses for Pictures by William Morris
William Morris’s collection of miniature verses relating to paintings or tapestries is a great introduction to the English designer’s verseWinterI am Winter that do keepLonging safe amidst of sleep:Who...
View ArticleDinesh Allirajah obituary
My good friend and colleague Dinesh Allirajah, who has died aged 47 following complications from surgery, was a believer in the liberating and educative power of the arts. He was chair of the National...
View ArticleMost disturbing children's poetry: share your examples
A selection of children’s poems has gone gone viral on Twitter after they were published in The Los Angeles Times. Is your child the next Sylvia Plath - or more of a McGonnagall? Share their poems with...
View ArticleNothing is made new: my poem and plea that clemency be granted to Sukumaran...
President Joko Widodo, clemency is a gift of the spirit. To kill the Bali Nine members shows only that death dictates lifeDear President Joko Widodo, I am the Australian poet, writer and academic, John...
View ArticlePoster poems: darkness
For some poets it has meant solace, for others it is something fearful, or a kind of memento mori – but now it’s your turn to leap into the shadows. Post your poems about the darkEven now, with the...
View ArticleAndrew O’Hagan: ‘I am in love with poetry’
As Andrew O’Hagan prepares to complete a journey around the British Isles begun with Seamus Heaney, he reflects on his lifelong immersion in poetry, and celebrates poets as risk-takers and...
View ArticleOne Thousand Things Worth Knowing by Paul Muldoon review – an intricate tour...
Poems that are the textual equivalent of a high-wire act, with juggling. No one does it better‘I’m at once full of dread / and in complete denial,” writes Muldoon in the opening poem to this, his 12th...
View ArticlePaul Muldoon and Nicholas Carr – books podcast
Pulitzer prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon on the ways in which modern life is intruding on to poetry, plus Nicholas Carr on the perils of automation Continue reading...
View ArticleMy hero: Virgil by Richard Jenkyns
Virgil is a hero for our times because he thought deeply about nation, community and identity – issues that puzzle us todayTS Eliot called Virgil’s Aeneid the classic of all Europe, and maybe that...
View ArticleOn my radar: Chantal Joffe’s cultural highlights
The artist on Egon Schiele, the magic of New York, the poetry of Emily Dickinson and the brilliance of Lena Dunham’s GirlsBorn in 1969 in St Albans, Vermont, Chantal Joffe moved to the UK at the age of...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Modern Female Fashions by Tabitha Bramble
In this witty 18th-century ‘newsprint poem’, the queen of pseudonyms Mary Robinson gently satirises female conventions and conventional femalesModern Female FashionsA FORM, as any taper, fine;A head...
View ArticleYoung Eliot: From St Louis to the Waste Land by Robert Crawford – review
A strait-laced upbringing and a disastrous marriage taught the young TS Eliot to camouflage his emotionsWhen TS Eliot died, 50 years ago last month, the New York Times called him that “quiet, gray...
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