When Huddersfield council proposed turning some local grazing land into a cemetery during the Covid lockdown, some nearby residents were unhappy. Not poet laureate Simon Armitage, who also lived close to the... Read more »
Despite shortening attention spans, people are “still reading novels”, said the writer Elif Shafak at a panel event on the Guardian’s list of the 100 best novels ever published in English, which... Read more »
A debut poetry collection with themes including race, addiction and womanhood has won this year’s Swansea University Dylan Thomas prize. American poet Sasha Debevec-McKenney took home the £20,000 prize – awarded to... Read more »
British poet Carol Rumens, whose Guardian poem of the week column ran for nearly 20 years and was beloved among its loyal readership, has died aged 81. Her family said that she... Read more »
Jeremy Halvard Prynne, known as JH Prynne, a maverick figure in British poetry, died on 22 April at the age of 89. “Jeremy was an extraordinary and original human, which is no... Read more »
“It’s a joy to be old,” wrote Roger McGough, one of Britain’s most popular, prolific and funniest poets. “The dog dead and the car sold.” Another joy might be decluttering. After the... Read more »
The UN special rapporteur on torture is being urged to investigate Lebanon’s role in the treatment of the Egyptian-Turkish poet and activist Abdulrahman al-Qaradawi, a dissident who has been imprisoned in the... Read more »
Batool Abu Akleen was having lunch in the seaside apartment that has become the latest refuge for her family of seven, when a missile struck a nearby cafe. It was the last day of June,... Read more »
At a time when its leadership is in question and its mission challenged, the Library of Congress has named a new US poet laureate: the much-honored author and translator Arthur Sze. The... Read more »