Butt-naked Milton and a spot of fellatio: why William Blake became a queer icon

How did an ancient poet and painter who died in obscurity come to obsess everyone from Oscar Wilde to David Hockney, Robert Mapplethorpe, Derek Jarman and David Bowie? The writer of a new book explains his glorious allure

The not-so sentimental bloke: who was the man behind CJ Dennis’s beloved Australian character?

Two researchers believe they have identified the real-life inspiration for the bestselling book of verse

‘Infused with the fire born of resistance’: the magic of the Calabash literary festival

Marlon James, Ian McEwan and Sheryl Lee Ralph lit up the Jamaican book event, celebrating the small island’s gargantuan cultural footprint with readings, discussions and DJs

‘Not everybody spoke posh’ in Jane Austen’s era, says top producer

Jane Tranter’s The Other Bennet Sister will ditch the ‘fetishisation’ of period drama to draw viewers into the novelist’s world

Jai Verma obituary

Other lives: Writer and cross-cultural organiser who founded the multilingual Kavya Rang poetry group in Nottingham

Paul Durcan obituary

Irish poet whose work dealt with misogyny, cruelty and bigotry, but could also be caustically hilarious

Poem of the week: Selling Watermelons by Andrei Voznesensky, translated by Edwin Morgan

The Russian poet’s playful verse about a Moscow market stall explores ideas of abundance and freedom

I am writing this with a pencil – it could be an author’s last line of defence against AI

My habit is quaint, I know, and there are downsides – but for those who value literature, the focus will shift to this: how do we prove we didn’t use AI?

Tell us about a poem that reminds you of someone you’ve lost

We would like to hear about the poem that invokes memories of someone you loved and lost

‘He lived inside poetry’: Toby Jones and Helena Bonham Carter perform poems in memory of lost loved ones

Actors including Asa Butterfield, Stephen Mangan and Susan Wokoma share poems as part of ‘Celebration Day’, a new annual moment dedicated to commemorating family and friends

Nam Le wins book of the year at NSW Literary awards for ‘passionate and bold’ depiction of Vietnamese diaspora

Author of 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem says of his work about war, family and racism: ‘I’ve basically been writing it my whole life’

Poem of the week: from Quatrains by Ralph Waldo Emerson

These epigrammatic verses compress the great essayist’s philosophy with a beauty that echoes Keats and might have pleased Wordsworth

My island of strangers: a poem

The prime minister warns that immigration could turn Britain into an ‘island of strangers’. Author and poet Michael Rosen responds

Life and work of Thomas Hardy to be performed at Stonehenge

Readings and performances will be staged at the ‘misfortune of ruins’ that long fascinated the writer

Poem of the week: Find Me by Shanta Acharya

Vignettes of devastation and tentative renewal animate these soulful scenes