‘If you were twenty in the summer of 1967, San Francisco was the only place to be.’
If you were twenty in the summer of 1967, San Francisco was the only place to be. The number one song told us all to wear flowers in our hair, as we were going to meet some gentle people there.
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‘I want the poem to destroy time. / What are the ceremonies of forgetting?’
An elegy by Nick Laird for his father, Alastair Laird, who died in 2021 of Covid-19. Shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem.
‘In the place where I grew up there were horses, thighs moving like nudity under their fur’
From Amnion by Stephanie Sy-Quia, published by Granta Books and shortlisted for the Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection.
‘My brother and I hurried through sloppy postures of praise, quiet as the light pooling around us.’
A poem by Kaveh Akbar, from his shortlisted collection Pilgrim Bell, first published in Granta 156: Interiors.
‘I wanted to and then / Remembered why I want to never’
Poetry by Shane McCrae, shortlisted for Cain Named the Animal.
‘Would / the apple be concerned / if I said it was not an apple’
Poems by Padraig Regan, from Some Integrity, shortlisted for the Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection.
‘When I was growing up in his house, religion was his crutch, a justification for his behaviour.’
Kevin Childs on growing up queer in a Catholic household.
The authors discuss music, the internet’s gamified reading culture and reading your reviews.
‘I used to be ashamed of it, though I’m not sure what exactly felt shameful.’
On training to be an opera singer.
‘My life as a writer depends on irony and metaphor, and my parents are horrified and alienated by both.’
Translated from the Italian by Elizabeth Harris.
A Kenyan journalist falls in love with the Tizita, popularly called Ethiopian blues, in this extract from Mũkoma Wa Ngũgĩ’s new novel.
