The Latest Breaking News from Ted Hughes

The idea of the titular Crow in Ted Hughes’ poems is wild, untameable and irreducible to words. In an early poem in the sequence, words come at Crow from all angles but he just ignores them. Finally, “Words retreated, suddenly afraid / Into the skull of a dead jester /…

A new stage adaptation of the award-winning novel about a grief-stricken family visited by a giant talking crow takes imaginative flight but never truly soars

The task of understanding Sylvia Plath as a writer is intimidating. Her archives are vast. They span countries and colleges, and have varying levels of access and availability. Studying her oeuvre in its entirety requires years of research and travel.

As part of Australian Poetry Month, the UK’s poet laureate shares his least favourite word and his most controversial pop culture opinion

Other lives: Poet and educator whose books transformed the teaching of poetry-writing in schools

Delve into the hypnotic world of lyrical literature

The poet laureate, who died a quarter of a century ago today, believed his Shakespeare fixation was almost fatal; his first wife, Sylvia Plath, was certainly the Titania to his Oberon. With his almost psychic connection to nature and a charisma so powerful that even the Queen was rumoured to…

As he turns 80, the prolific children’s author takes us on a tour of his Devon village, to talk about family bombshells, the burning of Joan of Arc – and finally getting a film adaptation he likes

The acclaimed writer will debut an original poem each Friday – becoming The Independent’s own resident poet