Tim Key, the superstar standup poet, on fishcakes, Footlights and the fringe
Tim Key was a standup going nowhere fast until one day he took out a notepad and poetry spilled out of him. Now he’s one of the hottest comics around. As his show Work in Slutgress hits Edinburgh, he...
View ArticleMartin West obituary
Scholar of ancient Greek poetryThe pre-eminent scholar of ancient Greek poetry Martin West, who has died aged 77, compared his work to a climbing-frame – something three-dimensional to move about in,...
View ArticleIndependent publishers dominate 2015 Guardian first book award longlist
From an eccentric debut novel to a searing portrait of Putin’s Russia, the contenders for this year’s award show the strength and daring of the ‘indies’Guardian first book award 2015 longlist – in...
View ArticleGuardian first book award 2015 longlist – in pictures
From a journey along the river of life to the imagined biography of an awkward terrier, and from a portrait of modern Russia to a collection of poetry hymning the male body, the longlist for the...
View ArticleBrian Nisbet obituary
My friend Brian Nisbet, who has died aged 56 of the neurological disorder multiple system atrophy (MSA), was a careers adviser and a published poet.He was born in Haddington, East Lothian, to Joseph, a...
View ArticleStop and hear the poetry: spoken words beckon to bustling New York City
Writers wax poetic at the Tuesday night Word for Word poetry series, bringing some wordplay into the lives of harried commuters and summertime loungersIf you haven’t heard of the now-extinct platypus...
View ArticleThe Saturday poem: Vertigo
by Les Murray Last time I fell in a shower-room I bled like a tumbril dandy and the hotel longed to be rid of me. Taken to the town clinic, I described how I tripped on a steelrim and found my head in...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Casualty by Miroslav Holub
A laconic address both to what was then a totalitarian state, and to the perennial ‘stupid’ violence of humanity, this is as trenchant as everCasualtyThey bring us crushed fingers,mend it, doctor.They...
View ArticlePablo Neruda and translation's losses
It seems fair enough that some licence is granted when rendering poems in a different language, but dropping entire cantos is surely taking things too farPerhaps it’s down to his wonderfully refreshing...
View ArticleKate Tempest slams conventional poets' disdain for performance
Arguing against intellectual snobbery, star author says performance returns the artform to ancient days when ‘it was about how well you could communicate’Kate Tempest has hit out at “intellectual...
View ArticleBenedict Cumberbatch’s Hamlet reveals something rotten in the state of...
Usually I’m glad if Shakespeare is hot news. But the mania over the shifting of the ‘To be or not to be’ speech is just depressingCumberfever has reached critical levels, as previews for that...
View ArticleTristia by Ovid – high drama and hoax
A thundering account of the poets tempest-tossed exile, this fascinating journey may not have actually taken placeWhat with his elegies on sex scenes and gallivanting gods, Ovid was nothing if not a...
View ArticleClive James: new cancer drug has him 'unreasonably well' and still writing
James dedicates his ‘little book’ of essays to hospital staff while describing his health as like waiting for a delayed flightRelated: Latest Readings by Clive James review – a life in booksAustralian...
View ArticlePoem of the week: The Horse Fair by George Mackay Brown
Through a child’s bright, clear impressions, Mackay Brown dramatises a lively young mind, and the education system set on deadening itThe Horse Fair Miss Instone said, ‘Children, you were all at the...
View ArticleThe Saturday poem: A Waiting Room in August
by Julia DarlingWe’ve made an art of it.Our skin waits like a drum,hands folded, unopened.Eyes are low watt light bulbsin unused rooms.Our shoulders cook slowly,in dusky rays of light.This morning we...
View ArticlePhilip Larkin: Life, Art and Love by James Booth review – judge the poems,...
An enthusiastic but judicious corrective to previous biographies of the ‘Hermit of Hull’This is now the third biography of Larkin. So far, they seem to be coming out at the same rate as his volumes of...
View ArticleCharles Tomlinson obituary
Poet and translator who bridged the cultural gap between old and new worldsThe poet Charles Tomlinson has died aged 88, at the Gloucestershire cottage where he had lived since 1958. It is significant...
View ArticleReaders recommend: melancholy songs | Peter Kimpton
Bittersweet, articulate, beautiful or bold? Suggest selections for a special form of sadness in songs for this week’s sorrowful but strangely uplifting topic“Misery is the river of the world,” grunts...
View ArticleYes we scan: Poets line up for Jeremy Corbyn
Michael Rosen, Pascale Petit, Nicholas Murray and Ian Pindar are showing their support for the Labour leadership candidate in verse, with a free ebook in support of his campaignPercy Bysshe Shelley’s...
View ArticleCitizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine review – the ugly truth of racism
A fearless confrontation of casual racism challenges the reader to question their own assumptionsClaudia Rankine’s book may or may not be poetry – the question becomes insignificant as one reads on....
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