The best recent poetry – review roundup
New and Collected Hell by Shane McCrae; The New Carthaginians by Nick Makoha; Father’s Father’s Father by Dane Holt; Hardly War by Don Mee Choi; Minx by Karen Downs-Barton
From The Sheep-Pig to His Dark Materials: the best audiobooks for children and teens
As research reveals children want to listen to books rather than read them, here are some of the best audiobooks to enjoy
Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie review – a tale of four women
The Nigerian-American author returns with an astute and moving exploration of female experience
Five football clubs to get official poems
Five clubs located in ‘priority’ communities across England are taking part in the National Literacy Trust’s A Poem for Your Club
When It Rained for a Million Years by Paul Farley – thrilling leaps of imagination
An impressive collection of poems – largely set in industrial wastelands and musing on time and distance – makes the mundane magical
Chang’an review – animated Chinese tale of poet-warriors is spectacular work of art
The historic capital of China is rendered in gloriously intricate detail, but this animated feature feels like a state-sponsored history lesson
Poem of the week: River Babble by Eugene Lee-Hamilton
A disabled poet laments the freedom he has lost in physical life but celebrates the liberty he retains in poetic imagination
Poem of the week: That by Rebecca Watts
Repetition mounts to unnerving auditory effect as a trapped fly makes a life-or-death bid to escape
Andrew McMillan: ‘As an atheist, the poetry of Mary Oliver is the closest I come to prayer’
The poet on his early love of horror and the transformative power of Thom Gunn
I was an evangelical Christian for 35 years – until my transgressive big sister gave me the courage to break free
My sister Dorothy Porter was a bohemian gay poet; I was a respectable church handmaiden. But she cracked the door open for me to start seeing the world differently
Measures of Weather by JR Carpenter review – deft verse that offers a guiding light
The British Canadian poet’s new collection invokes the elements as it interrogates imperialism, patriarchy and climate emergency
Poem of the week: Are they shadows … by Samuel Daniel
A beguiling look at the fleeting pleasures of theatre, and the fleetingness of pleasure itself
Gwen Watkins obituary
Codebreaker at Bletchley Park during the second world war who went on to become a successful author
What we’re reading: writers and readers on the books they enjoyed in January
Authors and Guardian readers discuss the titles they have read over the last month
Poem of the week: Four rispetti from Tuscan Olives by Agnes Mary Frances Robinson
The changing colours of the fruit provide rich images of ripening and bruising love