Humans are not always the most literal of creatures. We make sense of the world through metaphors: The world is a stage. Love is a battlefield. Machines, however, are very literal. But what if we ...

“I never got poetry,” someone says to me again. And I sigh. Because I never got it either — at least, not until I learned to stop worrying about “getting it.” In fact, “get” — with its connotation of ...

A friend of mine summarised her PhD in song form, taking the tune of a well-known hymn. She did it for a laugh but also thought it’d help her compress her thoughts. I forget what she rhymed ...

When the Internet offers a superabundance of material to read, watch, listen to and play, it's easy to skim over text and half-listen to broadcasts. But the British government is inviting ...

Writing poetry can seem overwhelming, especially for children. Rules, rhyme schemes, rhetorical devices — where does one even begin? But poetry does not have to be daunting. It can actually be pretty ...

If the word "excited" were an animal, it would be a spider monkey jumping around. If it were a color, it would be neon yellow, eighth-graders at Gahanna Middle School South decided last week. The ...

NEW YORK — Beginning work a few years ago on her latest book, an anthology of poems for young people, Caroline Kennedy found herself looking through one of her mother's scrapbooks. She burst into ...

We all agree, surely – memorising poetry is a Good Thing, and children ought to do it. I say, “We all agree,” because it’s so much easier to assume it’s a Good Thing than to have to explain why. The ...

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or ...