Poetry
Quietly devastating: Benediction reviewed
Terence Davies’s Benediction is a biopic of the first world war poet Siegfried Sassoon told with great feeling and tenderness.…
The nightmare of making films about poets
Craig Raine on the challenges of translating poets’ lives and work to the screen
A pure original: the inventive genius of John Donne
John Donne sounds like nobody else, and his poems invite us to feel that we might know him, says Daniel Swift
Bono's 'poem' was an insult to the craft of verse
‘Poet’, said Robert Frost, ‘is a praise-word’. So it is. That explains in part the unabashed delight with which Colm…
This be the curse: Philip Larkin’s big problem
Philip Larkin’s big problem
The making of a poet: Mother’s Boy, by Patrick Gale, reviewed
Charles Causley was a poet’s poet. Both Ted Hughes and Philip Larkin considered him the finest candidate for the laureateship,…
The delicate business of writing poetry
Living, as Clive James put it, under a life sentence, and having refused chemotherapy, I find I respond to the…
The National has become the graveyard of talent: Manor, at the Lyttelton, reviewed
Somewhere in the wilds of England a stately home is collapsing. Rising floodwaters threaten the foundations. Storms break over the…
How we rediscovered the charms of haiku
They got me through the past year
Homage to the greatest 18th-century poet you’ve never heard of
If you were to glance only briefly at the title of the Irish poet Doireann Ní Ghríofa’s prose debut you…
Spain vs Italy: who would win the wine Test?
In London, the weather is a gentle sashaying mockery. An Indian summer reminds us of the sullen apology of summer…
Contains moments of spellbinding banality: Radio 4's The Poet Laureate has Gone to his Shed reviewed
The interview podcast is a genre immoderately drawn to gimmicks, as the logical space of possible formats is gradually exhausted.…
Why shouldn’t we worship the NHS?
For obvious reasons, stocks in ex-editors of The Spectator are experiencing an all-time low. But my own complaint is with…
A smart take on literary London: Dead Souls, by Sam Riviere, reviewed
Sam Riviere has established himself as a seriously good poet who doesn’t take himself too seriously: his first collection, 81…
Orcadian cadences: celebrating the reclusive poet George Mackay Brown
Maggie Fergusson on the reclusive poet George Mackay Brown
What does your wedding reading say about you?
The pitfalls of choosing a wedding reading
Virgil understood the great power of nature
‘Georgics’ are an ancient form of poetry about agriculture and the land. The term derives from Greek gê ‘land’ +…
Sun, sex and acid: Thom Gunn in California
San Francisco is a fantastic place… it’s terribly sunny… I am having a splendid hedonistic time here… I find myself…
My clairvoyant GP
‘Willie or bum?’ I said to Catriona on the motorway. Everything in my recent medical career has been introduced via…
Two of a kind: Monica Jones proved Philip Larkin’s equal for racism and misogyny
Monica Jones certainly proved Philip Larkin’s equal for racism and misogyny, says Andrew Motion
My favourite failed podcasts
The promise of the internet was supposed to be thus: you could be your own bizarre, inappropriate self, and you…
Rescuing Elizabeth Barrett Browning from her wax-doll image
Elizabeth Barrett Browning was an ambitious, passionate, determined woman – not the sad-eyed invalid of legend, says Robert Douglas-Fairhurst
Alfred Brendel the Dadaist
How many people are celebrating the fact that, last week, one of Europe’s most inspired writers about music, modern art…
My fateful appearance at the Bank of England’s Christmas drinks
Tidings of comfort as the vaccination programme advances, but shortage of joy. That’s my summary of a season in which…
Churches are more Covid-secure than trains or takeaways
Monday night’s murderous gunman in Vienna is officially described as ‘Islamist’. Brahim Aioussaoi, the man accused of murdering worshippers in…
