Channel 4 News's international editor chooses her favourite books of poetry. She will present her book "I Brought the War with Me" at the London Literature Festival on 26 October.
Selected Poems
I always carry a book of poetry on my travels, and this is the most battered one. As a former foreign correspondent, Fenton has had experiences similar to my own, but poetry provides a more allusive, emotional language than journalism. "Wind", in which he evokes the mass movement of people as the wind in a field of corn, is one of the poems in my new memoir-cum-anthology that I like the best.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The Iraqi Nights
Dunya Mikhail, 2014
This Iraqi poet conveys the pity of war, marrying the terrifying with the everyday. We often associate war poetry with the First World War's soldier poets, but women have also written war poetry, notably from contemporary conflicts where civilians are the main victims.
Stag's Leap
Sharon Olds, 2012
I recommend this to anyone going through a break-up. In some poems, Olds’s divorce sounds like a civil war – but one that ends in peace and acceptance.
Available on The Week Bookshop
Forest of Noise
Mosab Abu Toha, 2024
This collection by a Gazan poet – written since the Israeli assault started last year – is full of fury and longing, an emblem of the richness of Palestinian culture.
Available on The Week Bookshop
Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head
Warsan Shire, 2022
Since writing the line "No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark", Shire has become one of the most celebrated poets of exile. She harnesses Somali oral tradition to Western pop culture. The result is a series of mesmerising poems about the experience of women and girls.
Available on The Week Bookshop
Selected Poems
W.H Auden, 1979
In the end, I always go back to Auden. He is the perfect poet for those of us who are absorbed in the history of our times, but who sometimes need to retreat into the personal.
Available on The Week Bookshop
-
Who were the ‘weekend snipers’ of Sarajevo?Under the Radar Italian authorities launch investigation into allegations far-right gun enthusiasts paid to travel to Bosnian capital and shoot civilians ‘for fun’ during the four-year siege
-
A free speech debate is raging over sign language at the White HouseTalking Points The administration has been accused of excluding deaf Americans from press briefings
-
Glinda vs. Elphaba, Jennifer Lawrence vs. postpartum depression and wilderness vs. progress in November moviesthe week recommends This month’s new releases include ‘Wicked: For Good,’ ‘Die My Love’ and ‘Train Dreams’
-
Glinda vs. Elphaba, Jennifer Lawrence vs. postpartum depression and wilderness vs. progress in November movies
the week recommends This month’s new releases include ‘Wicked: For Good,’ ‘Die My Love’ and ‘Train Dreams’
-
‘Paper Girl: A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America’ and ‘Unabridged: The Thrill of (and Threat to) the Modern Dictionary’feature The culture divide in small-town Ohio and how the internet usurped dictionaries
-
10 great advent calendars for everyone (including the dog)The Week Recommends Countdown with cocktails, jams and Legos
-
Gen Z in Los Angeles, the end of ‘Stranger Things’ and a new mystery from the creator of ‘Breaking Bad’ in November TVthe week recommends This month's new television releases include ‘I Love L.A.,’ ‘Stranger Things’ and ‘Pluribus’
-
6 homes with fall foliagefeature An autumnal orange Craftsman, a renovated Greek Revival church and an estate with an orchard
-
The 5 best nuclear war movies of all timeThe Week Recommends ‘A House of Dynamite’ reanimates a dormant cinematic genre for our new age of atomic insecurity
-
Bugonia: ‘deranged, extreme and explosively enjoyable’Talking Point Yorgos Lanthimos’ film stars Emma Stone as a CEO who is kidnapped and accused of being an alien
-
The Revolutionists: a ‘superb and monumental’ bookThe Week Recommends Jason Burke ‘epic’ account of the plane hijackings and kidnappings carried out by extremists in the 1970s
