Battle cry of the unbowed

Young Australian writer Roger Chao offers an impassioned plea for tolerance and social justice in lyric form.

Echoes of Louise

Literary critics who can only view art through a political lens disdained the late Louise Glück for writing intensely personal poetry, but because of this, rather than despite it, her luminous and fiercely intelligent writing will long outlive her.

Ariel

Sylvia Plath left a slim body of work, but remains one of the greatest and most influential poets of the 20th century.

Sir Gawain rides again

The medieval romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was recently reimagined as a movie, but the poem itself already has a surprisingly contemporary message about tradition, modernity and our sense of self.

Louise Glück wins the Nobel Prize for Literature

The wonderful American poet Louise Glück has won this years Nobel Prize for Literature. The Nobel committee heralded her work ‘for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal’.