During Shakespeare’s time the art of poetry was in the performance. Not so different from modern-day slam poetry.
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Articles on Poetry
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Kate Daniels, the director of Vanderbilt’s creative writing program, recalls the life and work of her mentor, a man “devoted…to creating gritty and empathetic portraits of American blue collar workers.”
I was on a train recently reading a book of poems by Carol Rumens when the elderly man sitting across the table said, “Do people still read poetry?” He frowned as though rats had re-infested his basement…
As long as the history of English literature is taught in universities, the charm of the immortal poem “A Red, Red Rose” by Robert Burns will endure in China. I first came across the poem by the national…
When Brian the farmer finished his poem the crowd went wild. Small wonder he earned the People’s Choice Award on the night. We were at a so-called poetry “slam” at a country hall in a place so tiny it…
This year the UK’s biggest poetry award, the TS Eliot prize, has gone to David Harsent for his 11th collection, Fire Songs. He joins a sequence of prestigious poets such as Ted Hughes, Derek Walcott and…
The excitement that accompanied the beginning of the Arab Spring has now largely died down, as a timeworn truth reiterates itself: when an oppressive power is toppled, a similar or worse one will often…
Oxford-educated and the possessor of considerable charm, Michael Massey Robinson was also a cad and a bounder. Convicted of extortion in London in 1798, he was transported to New South Wales where he worked…
Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. I usually begin my end of life ethics lecture with one of Dylan Thomas’ best-loved…
Australia’s long-running literary flagship program – Poetica on Radio National (RN) – is slated for axing in 2015. It’s one more casualty of the cuts to the ABC budget, announced last week. For the first…
When was the last time that you sat down and listened to someone telling you a story? I don’t mean your latest TV box-set instalment, gripping as it might be, or a beer-fuelled pub anecdote. I mean the…
Is there a poem buried deep in the recesses of your memory? Earlier this month, on the UK’s National Poetry Day, we launched a nationwide poetry survey inviting people to tell us a poem they know by heart…
Seamus Heaney’s final poem has been published just over a year after his death. Finished ten days before he died aged 74 in August 2013, the poem is a mediation on a painting of a canal by the French artist…
As we’ve marked the centenary of the first world war in 2014, the great poets of that conflict – Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Rupert Brooke – have brought the literature of conflict into focus. But…
Speaking with: Mark Seymour
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At the Melbourne Writers’ Festival this week, a panel of poets, writers and performers will read and reflect on the poetry of the first world war. Among them is Mark Seymour, the former frontman of Hunters…
Poetry for the Palace, an exhibition at Edinburgh’s Holyrood House, has been timed (its website proclaims) to mark the halfway point of Carol Ann Duffy’s laureateship. The exhibition places the openly…
We’ve become very accustomed to connecting World War I with its soldier-poets. And the centenary celebrations in Britain have very rightly reminded us how important key figures such as Wilfred Owen, Isaac…
Think Mary, Queen of Scots and a few key facts probably come to mind: she was Catholic, she was imprisoned and she had her head chopped off. But a poet who offers insight into 16th-century women’s writing…
Sunday marks the 45th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing on July 20, 1969, after multiple Apollo lunar missions unfolded through the 1960s in front of an awestruck global audience. But many wondered…
Recently on The Conversation, I described a remarkable moment of language experimentation highlighted by recent Australian poetry prizes. Panning out to a wider view of contemporary Australian poetry…
Top contributors
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Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing, The University of Melbourne
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Associate Professor, Department of Learning and Teaching Enhancement, Edinburgh Napier University
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Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing, RMIT University
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Professor of English, North Carolina State University
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Associate Professor in Australian Literature and Writing, The University of Queensland
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Lecturer, Creative Writing, UNSW Sydney
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Professor of English Literature, Aberystwyth University
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Senior Lecturer In Creative Writing, University of Roehampton
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Political Scientist, University of the Western Cape
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Executive Dean (interim) Faculty of Arts and Design, University of Canberra
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PhD candidate, Swansea University
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Reader in Creative Writing, Cardiff Metropolitan University
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Emeritus Professor of Literature and Environment, Curtin University
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Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor of English Literature, The University of Melbourne
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Honorary Professor, The University of Queensland
