Balladz by Sharon Olds review – insights and elegies
From pandemic poems to homages to Emily Dickinson, the American poet’s new work is intimate and heart-stirring
Anthony Joseph wins TS Eliot prize for ‘luminous’ poetry collection
Joseph takes £25,000 prize for Sonnets for Albert, which weighs the impact of growing up with a largely absent father
Poem of the week: The Church-Bell by Elinor Wylie
Still fresh a century on, this is a very neat dramatisation of the clash between religion’s commands and human instinct
In brief: The Cloisters; My Trade Is Mystery; Sweat: A History of Exercise – review
A tense whodunnit unfolds in New York’s Metropolitan museum; poet Carl Phillips imparts life lessons for all; and a study of our need to keep in shape
Poem of the week: Lightning Strikes School Tree by John Clegg
A droll story from a sleepy classroom reflects on what can be see from behind closed eyes
Don Paterson: ‘Poetry often involves obsessive personalities’
The award-winning poet on his painful and funny new memoir about growing up in Dundee, how he’s a ‘vile separatist’ and why music is his first love
The best recent poetry – review roundup
The Book of Desire by Meena Kandasamy; The Translations of Seamus Heaney; Mother of Flip-Flops by Mukahang Limbu; White/Other by Fran Lock; and Arctic Elegies by Peter Davidson
Rare Robert Burns book found in a barber shop goes on display
The first edition of Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect is now on display in Fife, with 50 pages missing due to being torn out and used to clean razors
Poem of the week: Self-Unconscious by Thomas Hardy
A curiously jaunty account of the bright life of nature a man misses while wrapped up in his plans
2023 in books: highlights for the year ahead
The best fiction and nonfiction to look forward to in the new year, from Zadie Smith to Simon Schama, Margaret Atwood to Rory Stewart
The classic ocean poetry taking on troubling new meanings
We hear the call of the sea in poems from Coleridge and Eliot to Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner, but those words also sound a warning – if only we would listen
Poem of the week: Zucchini by Peter Balakian
Sensuous memories of his grandmother’s cooking leave the poet reflecting on the struggles she endured
Hans Magnus Enzensberger obituary
German poet, writer and editor determined that West Germany should not ignore its Nazi past
Poem of the week: Grey Evening by DH Lawrence
The desolation of losing a lover inspires a forceful and imaginative lament for their loss
‘I’ve been banned since the beginning’: Jason Reynolds talks to Joseph Coelho
The UK children’s laureate and America’s ambassador for young people’s literature discuss finding a voice and how to get kids reading