The Empire of Forgetting by John Burnside review – last words from an essential poet of our age

This posthumously published final collection confronts mortality, alongside the world’s almost unbearable beauty

Poem of the week: Salt, Snow, Earth by Naomi Foyle

The relentless cycle of human violence plays out as a brutal symbolic game

Poem of the week: Poem in which I’m a transnational drug smuggler by Bethany Handley

A sharp and witty look at the treatment of people with disabilities conveys its anger with arresting artistry

Poem of the week: Honey Hunters by Rachel Bower

Humanity’s ancient relationship with bees is tracked from our earliest times through a history of ‘woman’s work’ to our collective peril today

Michael Morpurgo to recite Vivaldi-inspired poetry at inaugural Cornwall festival

Author wants to take arts to ‘middle of wonderful nowhere’ in far south-west, often missed by people heading for coast

Under Milk Wood invites us to laugh at ourselves – I wanted my music to do the same

Dylan Thomas’s evocative radio play has been adapted into films, a ballet, even a jazz suite. From its drunkards and nosey-parkers, to its ghosts and dreamers, Ninfea Crutwell-Reade’s new reimagining connects it back to its origins

Writing Australia: can the new national literature body make a real difference for authors?

Supporting writers is nation-building work, and expectations are high for the new body with its re-inaugurated poet laureate

Poem of the week: Nest Box by Simon Armitage

A drunk old man’s report of sighting an angel opens on to much broader mysteries

New prize for translated poetry aims to tap into boom for international-language writing

Award, to be shared between poet and translator, is a joint project by three publishers and will give a $5,000 advance for a new collection

Poem of the week: The Song of Arachnid by Gillian Allnutt

A generous and warm ecofeminist vision of the labours of motherhood

Angela Livingstone obituary

Other lives: Translator who made many great works of Russian literature accessible to English readers

Poem of the week: This Year Her Present by Victoria Melkovska

Gifts sent from a loved one abroad at first bring warmth and joy, then grave alarm

Tell us: what poem would you choose to read at a wedding?

We would like to hear what poem you would read - or have read – at a wedding and why

Experience: I live as William Morris for three months a year

It’s made me feel it’s OK to be an artist with a social purpose, though my wife hates the beard

Poem of the week: Hermes by Gabriele Tinti

A statue of the mythological father of poetry becomes an image of the declining authority of the art form