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Beverley Knowles finds another side to the poet's tragic talent at an exhibition of her drawings ...  read more »

Poetry rarely causes neck pain, however much you may dislike it. Slight physical discomfort may have marred the 200th issue launch of PN Review on September 12th, as the choice of venue—the Cartoon Museum in Bloomsbury—required the poets to read their work from a balcony above the craning audience huddled below. Yet there was much to enjoy and distract from the occasional crick.

Originally published as “Poetry Nation” in 1973, the PN Review has been championing contemporary poetry, translations and literary debate for over 40 years. Michael Schmidt, one of the co-founders, still edits the magazine, which is run in conjunction with Carcanet Press in Manchester. With their beautifully presented publications and eclectic mix of writers, both Carcanet and PN Review are staggering on in an increasingly difficult financial climate, helped by the continuing (though diminished) support of Art Council England. With international contributors and an increasingly global audience, they have certainly moved on from Carcanet’s original intention to bring together works exclusively from Oxford and Cambridge.  read more »

Philip Levine has just been anointed America's poet laureate. Lee Siegel explains why this is the perfect time for Levine's brand of anger ...  read more »

Remembering the furious poetry of Gil Scott-Heron ...  read more »

The King James Bible is 400 years old this year, and the music of its sentences is still ringing out. But what exactly made it so good? Ann Wroe gives chapter and verse...
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In 1989 James Fenton startled his friends by moving to a derelict farm to set about making a spectacular garden. Now he has surprised them again by selling up. Julie Kavanagh talks to Fenton and friends-and his gardener, Mike Collins ...  read more »

Daniel Arizona considers the life and music of a southern bard who never quite achieved the fame he deserved ...  read more »

When Wallace Stevens died, few of his Connecticut insurance colleagues even knew he was a poet. With the recent release of his "Selected Poems", Ryan Ruby revisits a man who proved that to be a great poet, no great experience is necessary ...  read more »

NOTES ON AN EXUBERANT POET | August 31st 2008
National Archives
There was a time when Ryan Ruby would've taken a punch for broody, gloomy T.S. Eliot. But years in the thrum of New York City have encouraged a taste for something more jazzy and irreverent ...

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POETRY ABOUT AGING | January 29th 2008

Random Rog/Flickr

Ariel Ramchandani finds a melancholic honesty in Grace Paley's last book of poems. Paley wrote with the detachment of a woman near death, punctuating her work with the occasional bitter laugh ...

Special to MORE INTELLIGENT LIFE

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