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In issue 34 there is Simon Barnes, the great sports writer for The Times, exploring the kindred stuff of sport and literature:

Sport is not news: it is literature in the raw.

It’s a packed issue, revealing the raw material (that is, the individual) behind finished works of literature.

There’s new poetry from:

• Stanley Middleton
• Julie-ann Rowell
• Christy Ducker
• and David Constantine

Jacob Polley is the latest Poet on His Work, writing about his haunting poem, ‘The Owls’ in a piece called ‘Fistfuls of Fresh Clay’.

This summer (August 6th) would have been Tennyson’s 200th birthday, so look out for celebrations and fresh thinking on the nineteenth-century poet. Plus we launch our series on Get Into Reading: the Reading Revolution.