Writing

The rosy almost-heartwood of larch, / which sounds like lark, which sounds like singing, / which sounds like the wood could open its rosy throat / and pour forth the song of boats / sighing in the harbour, / swimming onto slipways, knocking against pontoons / The grainy planks of teak, / which sounds like talk, which sounds like the boatbuilders / as they ease about the wooded space, handling compass planes, / talking of cleats and chines and carvels, making tea [...]

Wednesday, 21 August 1968   The moment you and Slava enter the dining room, he throws himself on the first person he sees, kisses both of...

Faber’s publication of Heaney’s translation of Book VI of the Aeneid pays testament to the enduring poetic prowess of its translator. His posthumous connection...

Ria Higgins Spanish Modern Landscapes at Colnaghi Many of us long for the darkness of the last year to pass and for warmer days to...

"Clarify your intent," — Lama Chopra, our meditation teacher, rang the bell for us to sit — "the Reaper was once an old friend." My...

Philip Womack In Praise of the Lesser Known Siblings of Mythology   When fossicking through the cornucopia of classical mythology, we tend to stop and savour the...

A woman slumps at a table, one eye guarded and watchful, the other replaced by a perfect circle of blackness. In the frame next...

Canadian artist Trate is causing a stir in London’s art world, and this will intensify next year when he holds his first U.K...

The idea behind ‘Painters' Paintings: from Freud to Van Dyck’ is an exciting one, if a little difficult to communicate in a title. The exhibition...

  This Sunday, the Art Car Boot Fair Pulls Back In To Vauxhall Back to its roots in the heart of South London, this year’s Vauxhall...

Fragmented Dialogues: Mario Fonseca & Mauricio Valenzuela, Art & Identity in 1980s Chile is currently on display at the Austin Desmond Fine Art Gallery,...

Dick the Bad: History's Most Famous Murder Suspect Richard III: Brother, Protector, King - by Chris Skidmore Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £20 ‘Edwards Four, Five, Dick the Bad/...

At risk of pointing out the obvious, it should be said before anything else, that J. M. W. Turner was always popular. Turner had...

For Najwan Darwish A lucky three-year-old Is Saher* Abu Namous If Gaza didn’t explode The world would have Known nothing of him Now he is all in reports One among the...

The long friendship and collaboration between Seamus Heaney and Jan Hendrix has been hitherto a little known story and began on paper and in...

I had intended my interview with Kevin Breathnach to go smoothly and at first it appeared to be doing so. We had arranged a...

‘So. What do we want today?’ I’m sitting in my local barbers chair, caped up like a clown - my head bulging through the top...

Ria Higgins Eileen Cooper: 'Nights at the Circus' Eileen Cooper is known for addressing the female identity in her paintings and printmaking. She is also known...

The ‘David Bowie Is’, currently on at the V&A until mid-August. I went to the late show on a Friday after work, a stone’s...

My Father was a boxer. He taught me how to box when I was nine. This commonality, and the need to impress him, informed a great deal. When Charles Bukowski at an event asked me to ‘take it outside’ over a girl, I said okay. I was 21 and shy. Everyone at the party kept telling him [...]

London is full of nice places spoilt by too many people. Covent Garden, Richmond and Tate Modern would be delightful if you could halve...

In the increasingly urbanised world in which we live, as encapsulated by 'The Commute', the first poem in Sarah Corbett's latest collection, A Perfect...

Virginia Woolf viewed greatness as a “positive possession”. In her mind greatness was “a bodily presence; it has nothing to do with anything said....

What do we think of when we think of myths? For children, myths are something unquestionable and magical. They present a world removed from...