It’s UK publication day for ‘A Poem for Every Question’, my new collection of poems for children, illustrated by the brilliant Joe Berger. Inside there are poems to answer all sorts of interesting questions: how many stars in the universe exploded today?; who had the first holiday?; how many times a day do we laugh?;…
language
Roger’s Thesaurus In order to grow, expand, widenhis lexicological corpus,Roger bought, acquired, purchaseda synonymopedia, a thesaurus. Soon, presently, without delay,he no longer ran out of things to say,speak, utter, express, articulate,give voice to, pronounce, communicate. This was all very well, fine, great,wonderful, super, terrificbut his friends, mates, pals found himboring, tedious, dull, soporific. So let…
To make poems rhyme can sometimes be toughas words can seem to be from the same bough,yet each line’s ending sounds different, though,best covered up with a hiccough or cough. Was this upsetting to Byron or Yeats?Dickinson, Wordsworth, Larkin or Keats?Did they see these words as auditory threats?Could they write their lines without caveats? What…
The mathematician John Venn was born on this day in 1834. To commemorate the occasion, here’s a poem in the form of a Venn diagram.
I took delivery yesterday of some advance copies of the gorgeous new edition of ‘You Took the Last Bus Home’. In celebration of that, here’s the title poem … You Took the Last Bus Home you tookthe last bus homedon’t know howyou got it through the door you’re always doing amazing stuff like the time…
Last week saw the release of ‘Sounds Made by Humans’, an album of ‘poem songs’ I’ve made with the brilliant Catenary Wires. The album is out now on vinyl and CD; it’s also available for streaming on Spotify and elsewhere, and can be downloaded. Some places where you can find it… BANDCAMP SHOPIFY ROUGH TRADE…
Insular definitions of the national past overlook the very things we should take pride in
Half of the world's languages are endangered. One new prize champions language justice by awarding language activists from across the world the Language Rights Defenders Award.
Some fans made the ultimate sacrifice to attend the quarter final game against France: 'I gave up Taylor Swift tickets for the Matildas'
AI is not just disrupting our lives but our very language too, writes Dan Clayton