Bread of Angels: A Memoir, by Patti Smith review – a wild ride with the poet of punk
Smith’s incantatory voice shines through in this surprisingly revelatory follow up to Just Kids and M Train
‘Ambition is a punishing sphere for women’: author Maggie Nelson on why Taylor Swift is the Sylvia Plath of her generation
What do Swift and Plath have in common, and should Kamala Harris have spoken out about her political ambitions? The Argonauts author turns her lens on poetry, pop and patriarchy
Mushroom tapes, erotic Greek myths and joyful Thai cooking: the best Australian books out in November
Each month Guardian Australia editors and critics pick the upcoming titles they have devoured – or can’t wait to get their hands on
Poem of the week: Simile by Éireann Lorsung
An elegant reflection on experience and imagination complicates a very familiar figure of speech
UN expert urged to investigate Lebanon over alleged torture of Egyptian-Turkish poet
Abdulrahman al-Qaradawi has been imprisoned in the UAE for almost a year for criticising Emirati, Egyptian and Saudi governments
The best recent poetry – review roundup
Namanlagh by Tom Paulin; Foretokens by Sarah Howe; Maryville by Joelle Taylor; Hekate by Nikita Gill; Goatsong by Phoebe Giannisi
Where to start with: Paul Bailey
The novelist and poet, who died a year ago, left a huge body of work distinguished by its melancholy wit and warmth. These are some of the highlights
WH Auden formed ‘intense friendship’ with sex worker who burgled him, unseen letters reveal
Exclusive: The newly released correspondence reveals how a strong bond developed between the Funeral Blues poet and the sex worker who broke into his home
Poem of the week: Storm in Brooklyn Subway by Menna Elfyn
A collective dash for shelter in the city takes on a spiritual, near-religious power
Forward prize names poets Vidyan Ravinthiran and Karen Solie its first joint winners
Judge of prestigious award says two best collection winners ‘address the urgent challenges of our time’
Iris Murdoch’s poems on bisexuality to be published – read one exclusively here
Drawn mostly from notebooks discovered in the attic of the late novelist and philosopher’s Oxford home, a new collection spans 60 years and touches on deeply personal themes
Poem of the week: On the Death of Dr Robert Levet by Samuel Johnson
An elegy to the poet’s personal physician is full of vivid detail delivered with infectious warmth
Maurice Rutherford obituary
Poet who wrote with originality, warmth and mischief about his home city of Hull, after turning to writing later in life
Joelle Taylor: ‘I picked up The Weirdstone of Brisingamen in a swoon of nine-year-old despair’
The poet and playwright on queer classics, cinematic TS Eliot and the comforts of a ghost story
‘The jobless should lead the attack’: a radical Jamaican journalist in 1920s London
The long read: Economic insecurity, race riots, incendiary media … Claude McKay was one of the few Black journalists covering a turbulent period that sounds all too familiar to us today