The Friday Poem

A poem every Friday

New, hopeful arrangements

Castaway: Christopher Arksey chooses poems from Philip Larkin, Christopher Reid and U.A. Fanthorpe to take to his desert island

Ah, bostid is the golden bowel!

Feature: Steven Lovatt on ‘Standard English’ poetry and it’s discontents

A tinderbox to light all the world’s wanting

Book Review: Rachael Matthews reviews The Home Child by Liz Berry (Chatto & Windus, 2023)

This barter of enthusiasm 8

Feature: Roy Marshall, Kathryn Gray and Mark Antony Owen choose poems by Suzannah Evans, James Fenton and Connie Bensley

The Wheel

by Kathryn Bevis — our Friday Poem on 15/09/23

Snowday

by Ian Harker — our Friday Poem on 28/07/23

To burn always with this hard, gemlike flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life

Feature: Sarah Mnatzaganian gives us a tour of her poetry bookshelf

Learning to read with Mallarmé, the most obscure of all poets

Feature: Bertrand Marchal discusses why Mallarmé wanted to make poetry so difficult for readers to understand

No one wears Brooches anymore

Book Review: Hilary Menos reviews Savage Tales by Tara Bergin (Carcanet, 2022)

The Climbing Frame

by Sarah Corbett — our Friday Poem on 21/07/23

What are poets really after?

Feature: Helena Nelson considers the pros and cons of the 'after' epigraph, and discusses the joy of treasure-hunting references, the accessibility (or otherwise) of contemporary poetry, and the necessary art of bluffing

To hear their voice bounce off the shape of things

Book Review: Rory Waterman reviews This Afterlife: Selected Poems by A. E. Stallings (Carcanet, 2022)