Poetry
Transcendent experience
idea
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
Poetry
idea
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
Poetry
guide
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
Poetry
film
Enter a dreamy French surrealist poem, where love and reality never quite touch
Directed by Emma Vakarelova
Stories and literature
idea
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
Poetry
idea
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
Stories and literature
guide
How to gain more from your reading
There’s more to words than meets the eye. Deepen your appreciation of literature through the art of slow, attentive reading
by Robert DiYanni
Poetry
film
Sail through Shakespeare’s melancholic soliloquy on life’s seven stages
Directed by Jérémie Balais and Jeffig Le Bars
Poetry
idea
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
Civic life
idea
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
Learning and education
film
A homework task prompts kids to reflect deeply on learning, and its limits
Directed by Emi Buchwald