Jo Shapcott: I'm not someone chasing her own ambulance
The president of the Poetry Society talks to Sarah CrownJo Shapcott has an ear for a title. From the jaunty clank of Electroplating the Baby via Phrase Book's knowing wink to the pointed...
View ArticleA special prizes podcast, with Emma Donoghue and Jo Shapcott
Claire Armitstead hosts a discussion on the books that made the Man Booker longlist and talks to author Emma Donoghue about being longlisted before being published, and Sarah Crown meets the Forward...
View ArticleOf Mutability by Jo Shapcott | Poetry review
Jo Shapcott's enigmatic poems fight shy of referring directly to her battle with cancerOf Mutability is, as its title suggests, a protean collection: the poems keep shifting ground, subtly transforming...
View ArticleIn pictures: Costa book awards 2010
As this year's winners of the Costa book awards are announced, get up to speed with all the category winners ahead of the overall prize announcement at the end of January Continue reading...
View ArticleWho should win the Costa?
It's not just the Oscar nominations today. Tonight, the winner of the Costa book of the year is announcedThe Costa book of the year award– announced tonight at Quaglino's in London – is particular in...
View ArticleJo Shapcott's Costa prize is a surprise victory for poetry
Of Mutability, which examines Jo Shapcott's experience of breast cancer, was a worthy winnerWho'd have thought it? For the second year in a row, poetry has triumphed at the Costas. Jo Shapcott's...
View ArticleJo Shapcott takes Costa book of the year award for Of Mutability
Bookies' favourite Edmund de Waal misses out as judges praise Shapcott's 'very special and unusual and uplifting' collectionIn a surprise result for the Costa book of the year award, poet Jo Shapcott...
View ArticleJo Shapcott: the book of life
Jo Shapcott's poetry collection Of Mutability won the Costa prize this week. She talks here about how cancer transformed her outlook – and her workIn 2003, Jo Shapcott – a poet of shifting territories,...
View ArticleForward poetry prize: who got rid of the women?
The all-male shortlist for this year's prize is sadly true to form. But apportioning blame is not easyThe 2011 Forward prize shortlist has been announced. It's an anniversary year: the prize is...
View ArticleJo Shapcott reads her poem I Go Inside the Tree - video
Jo Shapcott won the Costa book of the year award for her 2010 collection Of Mutability, praised by the judges as the book of poetry which best captured 'the spirit of life in 2011'. Here she reads I Go...
View ArticleJo Shapcott wins Queen's gold medal for poetry
Costa prize-winning poet follows illustrious predecessors including WH Auden and John BetjemanThe poet Jo Shapcott, who began the year by winning the Costa book of the year award for her collection Of...
View ArticleArtists, performers and politicians on the Guardian Open Weekend
Some of the speakers at the festival of ideas and open journalism share their highlights and reflections"The atmosphere here is very friendly: the crowd at my event, on gender equality, were really...
View ArticlePoetry Parnassus to gather poets from every Olympic nation
Organisers of the Cultural Olympiad event are still looking for artists from 23 countries, and need the public to help them• See the full list of poets hereFrom Ireland's Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney...
View ArticleSixty years in poems
Carol Ann Duffy invites leading poets to recall a year in verseStrange the potency of a cheap dance tune. – Noel CowardContinue reading...
View ArticleLondon 2012: Poetry in the Olympic Park – in pictures
The Olympic Games has brought poetry from every competing nation to London as well as Richard Price's 'snapshot' of Britain, Hedge Sparrows. As the Games begin, take a look at the poems from Carol Ann...
View ArticleGuardian Books poetry podcast: Jo Shapcott reads Emily Dickinson
The first of a new series in which the UK's finest contemporary poets read and discuss a favourite by another writer. Today Jo Shapcott chooses Emily Dickinson's number 465 Continue reading...
View ArticleSylvia Plath gets all-star tribute for Ariel anniversary
Actors and poets including Juliet Stevenson and Jo Shapcott will gather to recite the entire collection 50 years on from its publication"The muse," wrote Sylvia Plath to her friend and fellow poet Ruth...
View ArticleRosemary Tonks, the lost poet
Rosemary Tonks was a feted poet, trenchant reviewer and literary socialite. And then she 'disappeared'. Following her death last month, Neil Astley traces her extraordinary storyThe "disappearance" of...
View ArticlePoetry Society top prize explores familial discord
Eric Berlin wins prestigious award with poem Night Errand, while David Morley takes Ted Hughes prizeA poem exploring the fleeting flashes of anger we direct at our family, and the shame that it brings,...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Hairless by Jo Shapcott
Blending science, fantasy, and feminism, this is an unpretentious work that dances lightly over its weighty concernsHairlessCan the bald lie? The nature of the skin says not:it’s newborn-pale,...
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