Powsels and Thrums by Alan Garner review – the magus speaks
A rich collection of poems, talks, memoir and enchantments from the life of Alan Garner
Agimat by Romalyn Ante review – spells to ward off trauma
The poet and nurse’s second collection melds medical imagery with Filipino myth to make sense of Covid, love and loss
Poem of the week: Llyfr Geirfa fy Nhad / My Father’s Vocabulary Book by Gwyneth Lewis
A daughter remembers her father through his dogged work to learn the Welsh language, and his leaving of it
Australia will get a poet laureate next year. Here’s what needs to change first
A laureateship will force government, academic and literary institutions to confront their wilful neglect of poetry – and ask poets to begin to look outward, too
Poem of the week: Good-bye by Walter de la Mare
De la Mare’s Georgian romanticism often rings hollow in my ears, but this poem’s originality and hard edge spear through the poets’ mist
Prime Minister’s Literary awards 2024: Andre Dao wins $80,000 for debut novel Anam
Judges praise book as ‘profoundly relevant’, with Daniel Browning, Amy Crutchfield and Will Kostakis also winning in their categories
Poem of the week: The Journalist by Grahame Davies
A reporter on the Aberfan disaster reflects on his uneasy duty to write dispassionately about a devastating tragedy
On my radar: Raymond Antrobus’s cultural highlights
The poet on the power of abstract art, Shakespeare in British Sign Language and the ‘articulated rage’ of James Baldwin
The best recent poetry – review roundup
The Wickedest by Caleb Femi; Signs, Music by Raymond Antrobus; The Keelie Hawk by Kathleen Jamie; Scattered Snows, to the North by Carl Phillips
Poem of the week: […] by Fady Joudah
The Palestinian-American poet takes us straight to the aftermath of a blast, and a little girl’s joy at being rescued from the rubble before devastating loss hits
Bluff by Danez Smith review – ‘Afropessimism’ as an artform
The American poet’s dark, politically conscious fourth collection tackles the entrenched problem of anti-blackness and the aftermath of the George Floyd protests
A poem by Ali Cobby Eckermann: ‘The entire continent is sacred land’
Each week during Australian Poetry Month, a poet walks us through one of their works. Here the Yankunytjatjara poet reflects on the complex history of country
Beyond Bilbo: JRR Tolkien’s long-lost poetry to be published
Long-lost verse from the Lord of the Rings author will reach bookshops 50 years after his death
Poem of the week: The Art of Cloying by ZR Ghani
A young Mauritian discovers her own truths in the colonial, patriarchal canon she has inherited