Dick McBride was a poet of the Beat Generation who acted as a literary bridge between the United States and Britain, bringing the writings and spirit of the Beats to this country. In books and in performances of his own works and those of fellow writers, he sought to broaden awareness of the poets who had made such an impact on American writing.

In Lieblicher Bläue (In Lovely Blueness) takes its title from the Hölderlin poem used as the text for Hans Werner Henze's "Kammermusik 1958", a lengthy suite for solo tenor, guitar and small ensemble.

Fifteen budding young poets have won the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award today, on National Poetry Day.

London's Piccadilly Lights are being emblazoned with lines of poetry in a first for the world-famous landmark.

This is a disappointing mix of fact and fiction, as Hubbard struggles to bring to life the story of the Expressionist painter Paula Modersohn-Becker. She begins with Mathilde, Paula's daughter by Otto Modersohn, who is mourning the end of her affair with a married American musician by searching out her mother's home in the German countryside.

Instantly recognisable thanks to performances in dramas such as Hancock and Joan and The Street, the actress Maxine Peake has taken a more unfamiliar role: as narrator on a concept album that brings to life the infamous Pendle witch trials that occurred in her home county of Lancashire 400 years ago this month.

After The Waste Land came a time of trial – and a firmer commitment to religious faith

Paperback reviews of the week

An opera about British terrorists planning an attack? Arifa Akbar asks the creators of 'Babur in London' how they negotiated a cultural minefield

The wills of millions of famous Britons including Florence Nightingale and Winston Churchill are being published online for the first time.

While our image of Notting Hill today may be of a wealthy person's retreat, the area had a more bohemian and radical reputation when I was growing up. A combination of West Indian culture and a punky vibe made it irresistibly glamorous and edgy to me and my friends. It was the land of sound systems, skateboarders, the Clash, the Westway, the Mutoid Waste Company, the carnival and head shops on Portobello Road. It was home to Rough Trade (where I worked for a year when I was 21), Whole Earth foods, second-hand clothes shops and stalls on Portobello Green run by artists. It was the Notting Hill of Jimi Hendrix and of John Michell, the celebrated late cosmologist and author. I suppose it represented creative freedom.

The greatest of his generation

Director Grant Gee follows up his Joy Division documentary with a film about cult writer W G Sebald. Sebald's influential novel The Rings of Saturn is the subject of Patience (After Sebald). It looks at the life and work of the writer by retracing the journey at the heart of one his most celebrated books, in which Sebald embarks on a walk, spanning several days, along Suffolk's coastline.

Barack Obama marked its launch, but not everyone welcomes the new addition to the Smithsonian family