Embrace conflict, reject authority – William Blake’s radical vision of a meaningful life
Video by Great Books Explained
Poetry
Reignite your creative fire with blackout poetry – the art of framing what’s already there
Directed by Andrew Lavers
Metaphors open up our minds – but can also shut them down
The best analogies in poetry and science really crackle, but when do they expand our thinking and when do they constrain it?
by Claire O’Callaghan
The barbarians are at the gates in this electric Laurie Anderson performance
Video by All Arts
There’s no good reason to love each other – and that’s a relief
Loving is an unreasonable decision (we are all extremely unpleasant little beasts) and that’s what allows it to survive
by John Kaag
The unseen lives of others take centre stage in this surreal poetry adaptation
Directed by Michelle Kranot and Uri Kranot
Our days are both rough and slippery. Hope brings traction
I want to defend and buoy hope – it’s a fragile, quirky thing, but it has the power to help us act in the face of finitude
by John Lysaker
How to write a love poem
Flirtatious texts are soon forgotten. Learn to express your feelings in a beautiful way that will make a lasting impression
by Dan Simpson
Why spoken word poetry is so much more than a poetry reading
As poetry returns to its roots as a performance art, it’s providing many with a powerful source of healing and community
by Erica Fletcher
Enter a dreamy French surrealist poem, where love and reality never quite touch
Directed by Emma Vakarelova
Reading books is not just a pleasure: it helps our minds to heal
Through my own struggles and in teaching bibliotherapy to students, I know that books can help to heal minds and hearts
by Peter Leyland
Sail through Shakespeare’s melancholic soliloquy on life’s seven stages
Directed by Jérémie Balais and Jeffig Le Bars
A conversation with my spider Maman and Louise Bourgeois
Woman made of braided steel, monster I call Maman: why am I so scared of you? An imagined conversation with Louise Bourgeois
by Pascale Petit
The long poem is just right for our confounding, fractured age
The long poem is the right literary form for the unmanageable scale, the messy confusion and the epic ambivalence of our age
by Tess Somervell
The power of Langston Hughes’s ‘melancholy citizenship’
Langston Hughes’s poetry offers a guide to the sort of melancholy citizenship that can help us weather democratic heartbreak
by Robert L Tsai