Poetry
Alarm bells
The pitfalls of choosing a wedding reading
Nature calls
‘Georgics’ are an ancient form of poetry about agriculture and the land. The term derives from Greek gê ‘land’ +…
Putting on a brave face
San Francisco is a fantastic place… it’s terribly sunny… I am having a splendid hedonistic time here… I find myself…
Low life
‘Willie or bum?’ I said to Catriona on the motorway. Everything in my recent medical career has been introduced via…
A spiteful muse
Monica Jones certainly proved Philip Larkin’s equal for racism and misogyny, says Andrew Motion
Terrifying divas and lesbian separatists
The promise of the internet was supposed to be thus: you could be your own bizarre, inappropriate self, and you…
Escape into reality
Elizabeth Barrett Browning was an ambitious, passionate, determined woman – not the sad-eyed invalid of legend, says Robert Douglas-Fairhurst
Brendel the Dadaist
How many people are celebrating the fact that, last week, one of Europe’s most inspired writers about music, modern art…
Avoiding the punch at the Governor’s Christmas party
Tidings of comfort as the vaccination programme advances, but shortage of joy. That’s my summary of a season in which…
The Spectator’s Notes
Monday night’s murderous gunman in Vienna is officially described as ‘Islamist’. Brahim Aioussaoi, the man accused of murdering worshippers in…
Spreading the word
Nineteen fifty-six: the Suez crisis, the first Tesco, Jim Laker takes 19 wickets in a match. But also: Trinidadian pianist…
Sold down the river
The roots of the Southbank Centre’s current crisis stretch back to before the pandemic, says Oliver Basciano
The Spectator’s Notes
Juan Carlos, ex-King of Spain, behaved foolishly in relation to money and sex, and so his decision to leave Spain…
Rhyme and reason
‘It’s no go my honey love, it’s no go my poppet; Work your hands from day to day, the winds…
Opposites attract
On the way back from my daily dawn march in the park, I often pass my neighbour, a distinguished gentleman…
On the contrary
The Spectator arts and books pages have spent 10,000 issues identifying the dominant cultural phenomena of the day and being difficult about them, says Richard Bratby
The best Christmas gift you can give yourself is to learn some poetry by heart
Every Christmas I find I am living in the past. I blame my father. He was born in 1910 —…
Remembering the genius of Clive James
‘Clive James Stirs.’ That was the standard subject line for the emails I used to get from the great Australian…
‘Instapoetry’ may be popular, but most of it is terrible
Poetry is on a hot streak. Last year, sales in the UK topped £12 million for the first time —…
The many faces of William ‘Slasher’ Blake
‘Imagination is my world.’ So wrote William Blake. His was a world of ‘historical inventions’. Nelson and Lucifer, Pitt and…
The joys of Radio 4’s Word of Mouth
I first heard Lemn Sissay talking about his childhood experiences on Radio 4 in 2009. At that time he was…
Haunting and hallucinatory: hospital poems from Hugo Williams
Hugo Williams’s wryly candid reports from the front lines of sex and family life are a perennial delight. Often timeless,…
Up close and personal with Thomas Hardy
I walked in out of the rain, dripping, and sat down beside the fire on the primitive high-backed settle. ‘Is…
The great anti-hero of our time: Diary of a Somebody, by Brian Bilston, reviewed
Brian Bilston’s life is summed up perfectly by the incident with his neighbour’s dog. The annoying Mrs McNulty comes round…
Pam Tanowitz’s Four Quartets is a revelation
T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets is full of music and movement. The players, such as they are, slip, slide, shake, tumble,…
