The Things College Students Leave Behind

Readers reflect on salvaging what college students don’t take home. Also: Poetry that questions; the risks of self-driving trucks.

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Barbara Holdridge, Whose Record Label Foretold Audiobooks, Dies at 95

Beginning with a reading by Dylan Thomas, she and a friend found unlikely commercial success in the 1950s with recordings of famous writers reciting their work.

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Paul Durcan, Irish Poet of Tortured and Tender Souls, Dies at 80

He survived electroshock treatments and the threat of lobotomy to become one of Ireland’s most popular poets. The Irish Times called him a “literary phenomenon.”

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A New Book About Baking Bread Is Only Sort of About Bread

“Existential Bread,” a book by the poet and amateur baker Jim Franks, is only sort of about bread.

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‘Modern Love’ Podcast: Let Yourself Rage With Ada Limón

Limón has been on a mission to help Americans experience the full range of human emotion.

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‘Modern Love’ Podcast: Let Yourself Rage With Poet Laureate Ada Limón

Limón has been on a mission to help Americans experience the full range of human emotion.

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Not Time’s Fool: A Rare Version of a Shakespeare Sonnet Is Discovered

An Oxford researcher found a rare, handwritten variation of one of Shakespeare’s most famous love poems. About 400 years ago, its meaning might have been very different.

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Michael Longley, 85, Northern Irish Poet of Nature and ‘the Troubles,’ Dies

“Ceasefire,” his most famous poem, invoked the “Iliad” in exploring his country’s sectarian strife. But his work wasn’t Homeric in length: “Michael was a miniaturist.”

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Venice in Winter, With a Poet as Our Guide

A writer and his daughter wander the ancient city at night, inspired by Joseph Brodsky, the Russian writer who loved the city in its cold, quiet season.

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Jacques Roubaud, Poetic Master of Form and Whimsy, Dies at 92

He was trained as a mathematician, but he gained fame in France, and won major prizes, for his modern verse.

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