Ben Jonson is overshadowed as a dramatist by Shakespeare, his great contemporary. As a poet, however, he stands high. His polished urbanity, direct expression and classicism have been especially valued in modern times. T. S. Eliot says Jonson "incorp...

Taking his cue from an anecdote connected with Bach's late masterpiece, the "Goldberg Variations", Gabriel Josipovici imagines an English writer, a Jew, at the turn of the eighteenth century, who is invited to the house of a country gentleman in orde...

"Selected Poems" is a comprehensive selection of poetry written over seven decades. His unique style emphasises belief in a unity between inner and outer worlds, between subjective and objective, between the poetry, the philosophy and the private lif...

Does history tell stories? from "Concerning History" Yes, if the poet listens carefully. Elizabeth Jennings listens carefully, through spiritual, emotional and mental turbulence. She has created an abidingly popular body of poetry, using traditional...

The extraordinary and long-lived appeal of "The Song of Songs" lies in its unmatched lyrical beauty and in its supreme evocation of the moods of sexual love. Perhaps the most famous and popular book of the Bible, it is usually – and yet mistakenly –...

For thirty years Anvil has championed the idea of poetry as a free space for the imagination and spirit of poet and reader alike. In the process the press has gained recognition as one of the liveliest and most varied publishers of British and intern...

Donald Justice's poems have been greatly admired by his fellow writers on both sides of the Atlantic. He was awarded the 1979 Pulitzer Prize for his "Selected Poems" and in 1991 the Bollingen Prize in Poetry. "Orpheus Hesitated Beside the Black River...

At the time of its birth just over a century ago, the cinema was greeted as a kind of universal language – the first one that mankind had enjoyed since the complications of Babel and their aftermath. But this universal language soon developed a speci...

Josipovici's novel is based on the life of Pierre Bonnard, the painter of enchanting domestic interiors and innocently unsensual nudes. A thoughtful and deeply felt piece.

In "A Poet's Choice" Elizabeth Jennings includes the poems which helped shape her taste – poems she read at school, or discovered in bookshops and the library, or pored over as an undergraduate – work which first gave her a taste for the art of poetr...