The Saturday poem: Driving to work at 5am while listening to Bach’s Toccata...
by Will KempWinner of the 2016 Keats Shelley prize for poetryI peer outside then flinch from the headlights’ glare,a movement not dissimilar to the quirks and wincesof Klaus Kinski in Nosferatuthe...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Correctional by Kate Wakeling
Wakeling’s gruesome political poem, filled with phlegmy onomatopoeia and vivid imagery, is an evocative reminder of the atrocities humanity commits against itselfCorrectionalNo flag: they keep a man on...
View ArticleCarol Ann Duffy to mark phasing out of gas meters with new poem
Poet laureate concedes that the work, marking the replacement of traditional utility meters with ‘smart meters’, is one of her more unusual projectsPoetic inspiration can come from anywhere, be it...
View ArticleElena Ferrante and Clarice Lispector up for Best Translated Book award
The Story of the Lost Child and a posthumous collection of the great Brazilian author’s short stories among 10 finalistsThe Italian novelist Elena Ferrante, already in the running for the 2016 Man...
View ArticleGraham Pechey obituary
My father, Graham Pechey, who has died aged 75, had a lifelong love of literature and an enriching conversational and writing style – qualities that he employed as a literary scholar and lecturer.Born...
View ArticleWhat's in a sonnet? Musical potential, says Shakespeare admirer Paul Kelly
As the Australian troubadour interprets the Bard’s famed sonnets, he discusses how their peculiarly specific structure makes them ideal pop music fodderIt’s a heavy thing to lug around, but over his...
View ArticlePopeye, Klingons and John Lennon: the weirdest Shakespeare productions ever
His name may not appear in the credits, but the playwright has inspired some unlikely renditions of his great worksIn this 1940 episode of Dave and Max Fleischer’s classic cartoon, the pipe-puffing...
View ArticleThe Sunlight Pilgrims & The Dead Queen of Bohemia by Jenni Fagan – review
A hopeful end-of-the-world novel contrasts with a poetry collection suffused with ennuiJenni Fagan’s debut, The Panopticon, catapulted her on to the 2013 Granta list of Best Young British Novelists....
View ArticleFaber New Poets 13 to 16 review – four debuts with promise and punch
Kippers, Christmas, birthdays and bathos in collections by Elaine Beckett, Crispin Best, Sam Buchan-Watts and Rachel CurzonA camel, it is said, is a horse designed by a committee. The latest batch of...
View ArticleClive James: ‘A misprint in my new book made me feel I was contemplating the...
Getting things out of proportion is an occupational hazard for anyone whose occupation is overIt was either in the teleprompter script or in the crawler along the bottom of the screen – probably the...
View ArticleThe Saturday poems: Two sonnets for Shakespeare 400
by Wendy CopeMy father must have bought it second-hand,Inscribed “To RS Elwyn” – who was he?Published 1890, leather-bound,In 1961 passed on to me.November 6th. How old was I? Sixteen.Doing A level in...
View ArticleShakespeare Odes review – Garrick's homage makes stylish return
Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-AvonThe actor’s 1769 ode, with music by Arne, was paired with Sally Beamish’s Shakespeare Masque, with texts by Carol Ann Duffy, in this celebratory Ex Cathedra...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Jasper by Tony Conran
A wedding gift in verse, this is a warm celebration of art and craft, friendship and WelshnessJasperfor John Jones the potterWaxwork of a crag, a model of sea rockIn gleaming maroon –Hear the waves...
View ArticleJock Scot obituary
Poet who wrote only one collection but was a prolific live performerAgainst considerable odds, some self-created, Jock Scot, who has died aged 63 from cancer, transformed himself from a punk...
View ArticleThe moment Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes made me a reader
At eight years old, the very last thing Gavin Puckett wanted to do in his spare time was read a book – reading was tedious and to be done at school. Then he discovered Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes and...
View ArticleTennyson’s Tintagel, best washed down with a pint of Tribute and a pasty |...
The Disneyfication of Tintagel (Report, 25 April) is nothing new. I grew up in the village in the 80s and it was already a tacky paean to Arthur. For centuries, Tintagel was a small collection of...
View ArticleWhat difference does it make? Jackie Kay on her Morrissey-backed survey of...
What’s it like to have Britain’s most common surname? To find out, poet Jackie Kay went on a quest round Salford – and met a bedridden tarantula-keeper and a woman kidnapped by her own husbandMorrissey...
View ArticleRufus Wainwright review – puckish performance of Shakespeare's sonnets
St John at Hackney, LondonWainwright’s high-risk labour of love pays off as he corrals opera stars, actors and Florence Welch into luscious arrangements of the Bard’s classic poemsWere most pop artists...
View ArticleWarsan Shire: the Somali-British poet quoted by Beyoncé in Lemonade
She was London’s Young Poet Laureate, becoming a voice for its marginalised people – now her work has been recited by the queen of pop She writes of places where many Beyoncé fans rarely go, the...
View ArticleThe Day the War Came – a poem about unaccompanied child refugees
Children’s author Nicola Davies has written this poem in response to the government’s decision not to allow lone refugee children a safe haven in the UKA few weeks ago I heard a story about a child...
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