Instagram poets society: selfie age breeds life into verse and has a new...
Skepticism is expected, but these social media astute authors are causing a phenomenon and tapping into internet’s appetite for minimal languageThe phenomenon of Instagram poets – who are also, to be...
View ArticleSeamus Heaney’s final work – ‘Death’s dark door stands open … ’
Heaney’s last translation will be published posthumously in March. Here he introduces Virgil’s Aeneid Book VI, a childhood favourite and the work he turned to after his father died and when his first...
View ArticleThe Saturday poem: Up There
by John Fuller A complaint from the bodyHow do you live up there, arrogant rebel,On the decorative brow of your great life like a howdah?Don’t bother giving me your inspired answersTo all the obvious...
View ArticleBenjamin Zephaniah on fighting the far right: ‘If we did nothing we would be...
Racist violence was never far away for the poet and author when he was growing up. And even when the thugs put on suits, the threat of the far right never disappeared. In this exclusive extract, he...
View ArticlePoem of the Week: A House We Can Never Find by Kapka Kassabova
A breathless single-sentence piece by the Bulgarian poet draws on the powerful and complex emotions attached to migrationWe couldn’t waitto leave their house,to lie with lovers whose namesare forgotten...
View ArticleA new poet for St David's Day: Ifor ap Glyn appointed national poet of Wales
Glyn takes over role from Gillian Clarke and says he expects to use poetry ‘to celebrate Welsh success and reflect on Welsh failure’Ifor ap Glyn has been named the fourth national poet of Wales,...
View ArticleWelsh-language literature tells a local, but universal story
With a relatively small audience, Welsh writing is nonetheless full of energy and invention – and grappling with cultural questions that we all face, writes the next national poet of WalesWe live in a...
View ArticlePoster poems: Change
An unvarying theme in everyone’s lives, it has preoccupied poets – in varying ways – from Heraclitus to Gregory Corso. And now you Panta rhei, wrote Heraclitus: “everything flows”. Thus giving...
View ArticleSebastian Faulks: How Poems That Make Grown Women Cry made me cry
Is it a poet’s job to make the reader weep? Sebastian Faulks is moved to tears by an anthology of verse chosen by womenWomen, look upon these works and weep… the sequel to Poems That Make Grown Men...
View ArticleThe Saturday poem: Cleaning Jim Dine’s Heart
by Maura DooleyIn the afternoon sunlight at deCordova sculpture parkshe is on the top rung of a pair of steps cleaning a bigdark heart. And it has everything in it, this heart. Twice.Even the coffee...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Classic Hair Designs by Moya Cannon
Fresh, warm light is cast on a familiar scene, as visits to the salon reveal their eternal aspectClassic Hair DesignsEvery day they are dropped offat Classic Hair Designs,sometimes in taxis,sometimes...
View ArticleBarbara Hardy obituary
Professor of literature best known for her work on 19th-century authorsThe literary scholar Barbara Hardy, who has died aged 92, delighted in the challenge of a good argument. Because she never forgot...
View ArticleAeneid Book VI by Seamus Heaney review – a pitch-perfect translation
Seamus Heaney’s rendering of Virgil brings the ancient world to life with plain language and striking juxtapositionsSeamus Heaney and Virgil go back a long way. In his poem Route 110, from Human Chain...
View ArticleSenegal's founding president's poetry heard in native language for first time
The late Léopold Sédar Senghor was a renowned writer but only recently has a significant volume of his work been translated from French to Serer Fifteen years after the death of Senegal’s first...
View ArticleThe Guardian view on Seamus Heaney: Virgilian farewell | Editorial
The poet’s last work before his death in 2013 was a translation of the Virgil’s Aeneid, Book VI. And the Nobel prizewinner left us both an eloquent farewell – and a poem for our timesWhen Seamus Heaney...
View ArticleThe Saturday poem: The first duty …
By JO MorganThe first duty of each day is to unlock the heatfrom the mixed changing rooms, to prep the electric saunafor prepaid use, to uncover the pool where, I’m told,two girls once drowned, though...
View ArticlePoem of the Week: The Sun’s Shame by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Rossetti’s contemporaries accused him of promoting a ‘fleshly school’ of poetry, but these sonnets about death, renewal and desire are pure blissI Beholding youth and hope in mockery caught From life;...
View ArticleJackie Kay named as new Scottish makar
National poet says she hopes to open up ‘the blethers, the arguments and celebrations that Scotland has with itself’The acclaimed writer Jackie Kay, whose complex relationship with her Scottish...
View ArticleQatari poet freed after three years in jail for reciting poem allegedly...
Rashid al-Ajami was originally sentenced to life in prison in 2012 after clip of poem recital was posted on YouTubeA Qatari poet has been pardoned and released after serving more than three years of a...
View ArticleHeathrow turns to poetry to entertain soaraway Easter crowds
Michael Rosen and Danny Wallace among authors to write original work for children, to be broadcast around airport, alongside workshops and competitionsPassengers at Heathrow this Easter will be able to...
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