Poetry
Erotic Tonic For A Mad World
Catullus’s life — and snapshots of metropolitan Rome — are revealed through his poems in Daisy Dunn’s quick-witted biography
The Mark Of Cain
‘The story of Cain and Abel, like so many others in the Hebrew Bible, expresses a profound truth about human nature.’
Kind Hearts And Couplets
Two poets show that fierce emotion is not restricted by rhyme or meter
Cento Ground
The cento is a sophisticated and demanding poetic form — and best suited to schoolboyish ends
Russian Renaissance
Fresh translations of lesser-known Russian literature are opening up new horizons
Learn It By Heart For The Sake Of Civilisation
The case for memorising verse is often dismissed as nostalgia for the bad old days of rote learning. But memory lifts poems off the page.
Still Alive, Last Time We Heard
Two poets on the pleasure of memory
New Poetry
Three new poems.
Cartagena Poems
A sequence.
A Reputation More Durable Than Marble
What does it take to achieve lasting poetic fame in an age of glut?
Why Remoaners should back Boris
“Boris, ironically, now offers Remoaners the best chance of a soft Brexit, or at least a sensible one. And to those who want a second referendum—’the people’s vote’—there may even be a chance of that too.”
On the road
“In the summer of 1980, in the grip of some Kerouac-ish fantasy, I opted to hitch-hike from Laredo to New York”
Discovering the Great War of China
A third of a million Chinese labourers helped the Allies defeat the Kaiser, but their huge unsung contribution ended in betrayal