TS Eliot poetry prize shortlist stretches to Jamaica and beyond
Claudia Rankine joins past prize winners and debut authors on a shortlist that encompasses questions of racial identity, depression, love affairs and librariansA week after Marlon James became the...
View ArticleQuestions surround account of Plath and Alvarez liaison in new Ted Hughes...
Amid furore over account of poet’s funeral, Jonathan Bate’s decision to explicitly reference Sylvia Plath’s alleged encounter with poet Al Alvarez seems unresearched and inexplicableJonathan Bate’s...
View Article'That's not poetry; it's sociology!' – in defence of Claudia Rankine's Citizen
Made up of prose, photographs and an essay on Serena Williams, this award-winning collection isn’t easy to categorise – but it’s as much a poem as The Waste LandAt a recent reception following a poetry...
View ArticleDue North by Peter Riley review –
A standout collection of self-conscious, critical and unrelenting voices that excavate the pastIn his poem, “September 1, 1939”, WH Auden presented what he saw as his only power in time of war: “All I...
View ArticleParadise abandoned: does it matter that John Milton's former home is decaying?
The disintegration of Berkyn Manor in Berkshire, where the poet lived in his mid-to late 20s, has caused an internet outcry - but there is another home to remember him byA set of pictures has been all...
View ArticleThe Saturday poem: Summer for an Instant
by George Orwell(published in the Adelphi Magazine, May 1933)Summer-like for an instant the autumn sun bursts out,And the light through the turning elms is green and clear;It slants down the path and...
View ArticleThe Saturday poem: Summer for an Instant
by George Orwell (published in the Adelphi Magazine, May 1933)Summer-like for an instant the autumn sun bursts out,And the light through the turning elms is green and clear,It slants down the path and...
View ArticleThe Hollow of the Hand by PJ Harvey and Seamus Murphy review – an elusive...
The songwriter’s poetry is a reminder that experiencing the profound is not the same as being able to communicate itThis book is as handsomely produced as its subjects are in dire straits. For those...
View Article40 Sonnets by Don Paterson review – on the crest of a wave
Nothing escapes the poet’s scrutiny in his first collection since the award-winning RainReading a collection, poems sometimes seem to signal to one another. In Don Paterson’s 40 Sonnets, his first book...
View ArticlePoem of the week: The Lay of the Trilobite by May Kendall
A Victorian satire on evolutionary theory cleverly subverts, through a covert feminist argument, Darwinist ideas about the subjugation of womenA mountain’s giddy height I sought,Because I could not...
View ArticlePoet Gregory Pardlo: 'I won the Pulitzer: why am I invisible?'
Pardlo, Saeed Jones, Cate Marvin and Willie Perdomo excoriated the publishing industry for its lack of writers not white and male at a Manhattan panel“One of the things I run into surprisingly often is...
View ArticleThe Palestinian poet who inspired JK Rowling’s stance on Israel
The Harry Potter author quoted Mahmoud Darwish as she explained her opposition to a cultural boycott. But does his life and work fit with her message? JK Rowling has long possessed the mythical...
View ArticleUnder Milk Wood review – Dylan Thomas reduced to base ribaldry
Without a unifying idea, or any considered appreciation of the text, this adaptation assumes the air of a strained community theatre projectIs it significant that, in Dylan Thomas’s centenary year,...
View ArticleRediscovering Angela Carter's poetry: Images that stick and splinter in the mind
Carter’s early verse contains, as if in bud, the extravagant and sinister blossoms of her later work. As a new collection of her poems is published, Rosemary Hill uncovers some forgotten...
View ArticlePet rescue: Unseen TS Eliot cat poem recovered
Cumberleylaude, a ‘gourmet cat’ the author invented after a dinner party with a young friend, is belatedly added to Old Possum’s famous menagerieIn Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, TS Eliot gave us...
View ArticleUbud writers' festival debates massacre 'that we’re not supposed to talk about'
The 50th anniversary of Indonesia’s 1965 anti-communist purges which killed 500,000 gets public airing despite authorities’ moves to enforce silence If the Indonesian authorities hoped to silence...
View ArticleTo be a poet: a short film about coming to Australia as a refugee – video
Abraham Nouk came to Australia as a Sudanese refugee. He was unable to read, write or speak English. Now he is an award-winning spoken-word artist and poet.This short documentary was shot during the...
View ArticleBilly Bragg: 'I got this crazy idea I was a poet'
From bedroom tussles to political struggles, Billy Bragg has chronicled our charged times. In this exclusive extract from his new book A Lover Sings, the singer reveals how he cracked songwriting – and...
View ArticlePoets lobby Iran to pardon pair convicted of insulting religion
More than 100 international poets say Mehdi Mousavi and Fatemeh Ekhtesari face inhumane punishment for ‘the simple act of expressing themselves by creating art’Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali...
View ArticleDarfur poet triumphs in international poetry slam
Emtithal Mahmoud, whose family were driven from Sudan by war when she was a child, wins performance poetry title for pieces drawing on a traumatic history“When I was 7, she cradled bullets in the...
View Article
