Nikki Giovanni’s poetry was a platform for truth-telling
There was a directness and urgency in her spoken and written voice but she could be mischievous and funny too
‘How many dead Palestinians are enough?’ The unbearable prescience of the late poet Refaat Alareer
The author and academic was killed in an Israeli airstrike a year ago. A posthumous collection of his work, If I Must Die, tells the stories of Gaza in a plea for change
Nikki Giovanni, acclaimed poet of the Black Arts Movement, dies aged 81
The award-winning US poet and author of works like Black Feeling, Black Talk and Those Who Ride the Night Winds has died after a third cancer diagnosis
Poem of the week: I know that all beneath the moon decays by William Drummond of Hawthornden
A sonnet about disappointed love is enlivened by a large imagination and technical fluency of great vitality
The best books to give as gifts this Christmas
From a radical retelling of Huckleberry Finn to Al Pacino’s autobiography, novelists and nonfiction writers reveal the books they will be giving as gifts – and the volumes they would love to find in their own stocking
‘Scotland has always been multilingual’: new Scottish makar Peter Mackay
As new national poet, the Gaelic speaker is looking at all of the languages spoken in the country, to see ‘what we can learn between them’
The best poetry books of 2024
The joy of house parties, an email to an estate agent, tales from a billionaire’s dolls and more
Poem of the week: In Drear Nighted December by John Keats
A wintry vision of the separation of two lovers gains fresh energy from the verse’s roots in folk song
Cornish tourist spot unveils spider-related haiku spun by Simon Armitage
Work first in a series from poet laureate about wildlife that exists in the Lost Gardens of Heligan
Poem of the week: The Rights of Woman by Anna Laetitia Barbauld
This vision of liberation by a supporter of the French Revolution is rather less straightforwardly feminist than Mary Wollstonecraft’s
Lord Byron museum to open in Italian building where poet had intense affair
Visitors will be able to explore Palazzo Guiccioli in Ravenna, where Byron romanced its aristocrat owner’s wife
Pretentious, moi?: Josh Brolin’s poetry about Dune has landed, whether we like it or not
Brolin’s verses about Timothée Chalamet and Florence Pugh have now found their way into a London art gallery in the form of Dune: Exposures
Blackbird Singing at Dusk by Wendy Pratt review – the great smells of the north and nature
Grief rubs shoulders with greasy chip pans in a humorous and heartfelt celebration of the coastal working class
AI poetry rated better than poems written by humans, study shows
Findings suggest non-expert poetry readers who participated preferred AI works because they find them more straightforward and accessible
Poem of the week: Renacuajos by Michael Schmidt
An oblique elegy for the poet’s brother is addressed to his great-niece with some friendly information about the life of tadpoles