The Home Child by Liz Berry review – a long injustice

Based on the life of the author’s great-aunt, this verse novel about forced child emigration from the UK to Canada is a profound act of witness

Poem of the week: Not It by Caitlin Doyle

A children’s game conveys the panic-inducing sensation of reaching adulthood, of being ‘It’ before being ready

What we’re reading: writers and readers on the books they enjoyed in March

Authors, critics and Guardian readers discuss the titles they have read over the last month. Join the conversation in the comments

DM Thomas obituary

Author, poet and scholar of Russian literature whose greatest success came with his controversial 1981 novel The White Hotel

Poem of ‘beauty, wit and grace’ about fathers and sons wins National Poetry Competition

Ex-New York cab driver Lee Stockdale wins £5,000 after My Dead Father’s General Store in the Middle of a Desert beat 17,000 other poems

Mariluz Escribano Pueo: the late Spanish poet finally finding acclaim

Child of Spanish civil war is attaining readership and recognition that eluded her in her lifetime

Top 10 stories about wolves

Writers including Angela Carter, Karen Russell and Jiang Rong have looked into the eyes of an animal that roams widely through our stories and stalks our collective imagination

Poem of the week: here yet be dragons by Lucille Clifton

This short poem with a vast moral force field examines humanity, the monsters of racism, misogyny and militarism, and asks the reader a crucial, mind-stopping question

Simon Armitage savours spring ‘ecstasy and melancholy’ on World Poetry Day

Poet laureate celebrates a plum tree in poem commissioned by the National Trust for its blossom campaign

Poem of the week: Simulacrum by Oluwaseun Olayiwola

Crafted with a choreographer’s eye for flow and shape, this nuanced and honest ‘page poem’ recalls a sexual encounter with an unnamed lover

‘A billion listens? Is that a lot?’ John Cooper Clarke on penning possibly the world’s favourite poem

I Wanna Be Yours, a love poem that rhymes Ford Cortina with vacuum cleaner, has been a school text and a wedding staple. But now, thanks to TikTok and Arctic Monkeys, it has gone spectacularly global. So who was it written for?

Export ban on Coleridge anti-slavery manuscript as British buyer sought

Handwritten poem in Greek from his undergraduate years has recommended sale price of £20,400

Contort yourself! The mutant disco mayhem of New York’s Ze Records

Disgusted with Britain’s ‘cruel’ aristocracy, Michael Zilkha left to champion a generation of party-starting punk-funk bands. As he returns as a book publisher, he remembers that wild scene

Poetry can move souls and thrum hearts: why wouldn’t we teach our children about it?

A dispiriting new survey has found that nearly a quarter of schools teach poetry only once a year or less. What a shame that is, says children’s laureate, Joseph Coelho

Many UK primary schoolchildren ‘drastically’ missing out on poetry

Research in January by Macmillan and CLPE found limited books and lack of teacher support means majority study or hear poetry less than once a week