You scratch my back, I'll stab yours ...Valentine Cunningham finds blood on the books pages

The poetry world's answer to Men Behaving Badly has walked off with the prize established to commemorate saintly TS Eliot.

See how sculptures come into being (right), from maquettes and studies to finished pieces, at an exhibition of the new work of Sir Eduardo Paolozzi. At Jason & Rhodes, 4 New Burlington Place, London W1, 22 October to 22 November. Maggie Philo is an artist of the cut-out. In The Decoupage Collection (Aurum Press, pounds 18.95) (below), she shows how to transform old lampshades and brighten your breadbin

Poetry

The Maid's Tragedy / A Chaste Maid in Cheapside The Globe, London

AGENT PROVOCATEUR

The countryside is under threat. The story of Barbara Sutton and the family smallholding which was razed for efficiency is typical of the march of `progress'. Jack O'Sullivan reports

I starred last night, I shone:

Tinselly sounds and festive fun with the Bournemouth SO.

Seamus Heaney and Adrian Mitchell are among 10 poets on the shortlist for the pounds 5,000 T S Eliot prize, announced yesterday. Judges Andrew Motion, Helen Dunmore and Ruth Padel picked the list of the 10 best collections of the year, and will also choose the eventual winner, to be announced on 13 January.

The actress Joanna Lumley (above) led readings of Sir John Betjeman's poetry at the unveiling of a stone tablet to the late poet laureate in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey.

Lachlan Mackinnon relishes an 18th century classic in post-modernist guise; The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Martin Rowson, Picador, pounds 15.99

Andrew Motion on the private muse

Laurence Sterne's vast, hilarious 18th-century masterpiece has been adapted into a mighty comic book. Here, with pages of his elaborate, brilliant and perhaps totally insane project, the artist explains how (and even why) he did it