A delicate touch

How to write poetry that speaks your truth, even if you’re a complete beginner

The lyric essay is a relatively new form of creative non-fiction, and it’s often considered the most challenging to write because it is hard to describe and define. In fact, the key is blurring bounda

You have the universe in your hair and the stars on your brow. I would wrap you up in heaven’s rainbow cloak, But I am a poor man. My only currency is hope. You are like an orchard abundant with fruit

Novels, for me, have come from somewhere I wasn’t looking. In my twenties I was carrying an idea about a woman wandering around Ireland on a quest she didn’t understand and I sat in the Reading Room o

The precocious poetry of Charlotte Brontë

Search for “bog” in this new edition of Seamus Heaney’s poems and you will find the word some 60 times; the 1,200 tissue-thin pages are mulchy with “the squelch and slap of soggy peat”. There is the o