Poem of the week: All Day It Has Rained by Alun Lewis
The relaxed details of a slow Sunday at a military training camp in ‘Edward Thomas country’ mix with foreboding about what will followAll Day It Has RainedAll day it has rained, and we on the edge of...
View ArticleDread of literary parties led Philip Larkin to shun Oxford poetry professorship
In letter to colleague, poet wrote that he dreaded post’s ‘sherry-drill with important people’ and that he would be ‘entirely unfitted’ for the jobA vision of the “hell on earth” that is a literary...
View ArticleOxford poetry needs to broaden its accent | Letters
It’s wonderful that the Guardian continues to devote ink (and gigabytes) to the election of the Oxford professor of poetry (Report, 26 May), but you seem to have already decided it is a two-man race –...
View ArticleA climate change poem for today: Still Life with Sea Pinks and High Tide by...
UK poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy curates a series of 20 original poems by various authors on the theme of climate changeThrift grows tenacious at the tide’s reach.What is that reach when the wateris...
View ArticleA climate change poem for today: Nostalgia by Don Paterson
UK poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy curates a series of 20 original poems by various authors on the theme of climate changeI miss when I could drop down on all foursand flick the ground away from under...
View ArticleCraig Raine poem prompts Twitterstorm
Seventy-year-old poet’s Gatwick, fantasising about a young airport worker, unleashes stream of parodiesThe poet Craig Raine is no stranger to the sexually risqué - his very first collection, The Onion,...
View ArticleA climate change poem for today: A Language of Change by David Sergeant
UK poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy curates a series of 20 original poems by various authors on the theme of climate change‘as late capitalism writhed in its internal decision concerning whetherto destroy...
View ArticleCraig Raine should be free to express a fleeting moment of horniness | Sophie...
The Twitterstorm unleashed by his absurd, lustful Gatwick poem is sheer bullying. Poets must be able to expose imperfect feelingsDear fellow-artist, why so free / With every sort of company / With...
View ArticlePablo Neruda poisoning doubts fuelled by new forensic tests
Claims have persisted that the communist poet was murdered in 1973 by agents of Chilean dictator Pinochet. Now a Spanish team examining exhumed bones has found troubling resultsThe discovery this week...
View ArticleA climate change poem for today: California Dreaming by Lachlan Mackinnon
UK poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy curates a series of 20 original poems by various authors on the theme of climate changeAlmonds and vines and lawnsdrink up the lastof shallow, short-term waterthen suck...
View ArticlePoster poems: marriage
For Shakespeare it is an ‘ever-fixed mark’, for Larkin it is a source of cynicism and renewal. This month, vow to reflect on wedlock with all its passions, trials and tribulations, then post your poems...
View ArticleBeyond the Booker: in defence of the literary prize
Philip Hensher has taken aim at the current glut of book awards. But the gongs are here to stayAli Smith’s Baileys prize win this week was a fabulous achievement, ensuring that her joyous, and formally...
View ArticleMuch to be learned from Philip Larkin’s letters | Letters
The recently discovered letter from Philip Larkin to Rachel Trickett in 1968 concerning the Oxford professorship of poetry (‘My idea of hell is a literary party’, 1 June) is not the only occasion when...
View ArticleLove, poetry and war: the Afghan women risking all for verse
Founder of Afghanistan’s largest women’s literary society will be speaking at International Poetry Festival in London this yearThe founder of Afghanistan’s largest women’s literary society, whose...
View ArticleNick Cave: ‘The idea of censoring things as you write, it’s something I don’t...
The songwriter and author on finding fresh inspiration, oversharing and hanging out by Bryan Ferry’s poolSee an exclusive video of Nick Cave reading from The Sick Bag SongYour new book, The Sick Bag...
View ArticleThe Curiosities review – confident, clever, captivating
Christopher Reid’s alphabetical conceit finds the poet in an assured mood and master of his craftThe lure of the alphabet as a way of organising poetry is not new to Christopher Reid, whose work for...
View ArticleCitizen: Claudia Rankine's anti-racist lyric essays up for Forward poetry award
US writer’s ‘ bold challenge to definitions of poetic form’ joins Forward prize shortlist, alongside others including Paul Muldoon and Ciaran CarsonClaudia Rankine’s Citizen, an exploration of everyday...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Breezeway by John Ashbery
There’s a generous measure of fun in the title poem of Ashbery’s latest collection, but the American poet also plays hide and seek with violence and disconnectionSomeone said we needed a breezewayto...
View ArticleLess of the white man in a loincloth, please | Letter
Keep it in the Ground has offered excellent news coverage of indigenous communities in Canada and Australia confronting climate change – but Lachlan Mackinnon’s poem (5 June) ends with a tired Last of...
View ArticleCornel West: Australia is on the path to US-style fascism
Any country that connects mass surveillance, corporations, big money and even bigger government is in trouble, says the American academic“This is a blessing for me,” Cornel West says at the start of...
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