Wellwater by Karen Solie – landscapes in distress captured with raw candour
In this blazingly honest collection, the Canadian poet catalogues humanity’s destructive impact on the natural world
Poem of the week: The old pond full of flags and fenced around … by John Clare
A closely observed country scene teems with the vitality of early summer
In the Rhododendrons by Heather Christle review – back to the mother land
A poet’s memoir of family, trauma, and Virginia Woolf pulses with feeling and intelligence
‘His delivery cut through class barriers’: Moby, Mala and other musicians on working with Benjamin Zephaniah
On what would have been the late dub poet’s 67th birthday, his musical collaborators remember his warmth, invigorating words and reflections on the state of the world
Poem of the week: Death sets a Thing significant … by Emily Dickinson
The traces of a lost friend are keenly felt in the material things they once touched
Epic win: why the Odyssey is having a moment
With new translations, a film starring Ralph Fiennes and a Christopher Nolan blockbuster on the way, Homer’s saga about a soldier’s return from battle speaks to our times in unexpected ways
Clive Wilmer obituary
Poet and scholar who promoted the work of John Ruskin and edited a selection of Thom Gunn’s essays
Poem of the week: A Sonnet to the Noble Lady, the Lady Mary Wroth by Ben Jonson
A strategically flattering tribute to a pioneering female writer is lifted by authentic warmth and admiration
The best recent poetry – review roundup
Dante’s Inferno by Lorna Goodison; Wellwater by Karen Solie; Chaotic Good by Isabelle Baafi; Find Me As the Creature I Am by Emily Jungmin Yoon; Ecstasy by Alex Dimitrov
John Seed obituary
Other lives: Author, poet and academic whose books often fused history with verse
The Possibility of Tenderness by Jason Allen-Paisant review – a Jamaican childhood
The poet and writer returns to the May Day mountains in a gentle rumination on family and nature
Poem of the week: Digging the Well by Erica McAlpine
A breezy but ambiguous allegory arranges its symbols with appealing wit
Between the lines: what do White Lotus characters’ book choices tell us?
Season three offers up clues to characters’ psyches – or perhaps their fates – by showing us their holiday reads
‘Impressive, ingenious and affecting’ poem about missing an absent son wins National Poetry Competition
Fiona Larkin’s poem uses Finnish grammar to explore her feelings about her son’s move from the UK to Brisbane
Poem of the week: The Stopover by Giovanni Pascoli, translated by Taije Silverman and Marina Della Putta Johnston
A swan appears to sing the aurora borealis into existence in this visionary nature poem with an unexpected war connection