Words and pictures

This week on CW, David Bowden reviews Luke Kennard’s latest poetry collection, The Migraine Hotel, and finds an unlikely affinity with Kingsley Amis, while Angus Kennedy reviews Adam Foulds’ novel The Quickening Maze, and celebrates the poetic rather than ‘political’ legacy of John Clare. Nicky Charlish ponders the relationship between inspiration and identity at the Gay Icons exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London, and Timandra Harkness adds music to the mix with a review of Kaija Saariho’s agreeably challenging opera L’Amour de Loin at the ENO.

And following Miriam Gillinson’s sceptical take on Dylan Tighe’s Medea/Medea at the Gate last week, Giulia Merlo offers a second opinion. The beginning of a debate on the merits of ‘Continental theatre’? Watch this space.

10 July 2009